关系2.0：微小互动的力量 + 你的问题解答：埃里卡·贝利谈真实性

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔姆。问问自己什么让你快乐？许多人会说与密友共度时光、与家人共享美好时刻、与宠物玩耍。我们大多认同人际关系是美好生活的核心。社会科学研究也证实了这一点。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Ask yourself what makes you happy? Many people would say spending time with close friends, quality moments with family, Playing with a pet Most of us can agree relationships are at the heart of a life well lived. Social science research bears this out.

无数研究表明，我们与他人的情感纽带塑造了我们的幸福感。长期追踪人群的分析显示，社会关系不仅关乎情感健康，更是身体健康的重要决定因素。但说关系重要是一回事，如何建立或维系它们则是另一回事。终身挚友会搬往其他城镇或国家。

Countless studies suggest that our emotional ties to others shape our well-being. Long running analyses that track people over time show that social connections are not just about our emotional well-being they are important determinants of our physical health. But it's one thing to say that relationships are important. It's another to go about getting them or preserving them. Lifelong friends move away to other towns and countries.

浪漫关系会破裂。亲人会离世。尤其当人们年岁渐长，许多人发现即使渴望亲近他人，建立新关系也变得困难。新心理学研究提出了一个解决方案——或至少是部分解决方案，且人人皆可轻易实践。上周在《人际关系2.0》系列中，我们探讨了人际谈判中的常见错误。

Romantic relationships come undone. Relatives pass away. And especially as people get older, many find it difficult to form new relationships, even as they yearn to feel close to others. New psychological research suggests a solution to this problem, or at least a partial solution, and it's one that's easily accessible to everyone. Last week in our Relationships two point zero series, we looked at the common mistakes we make when negotiating with other people.

本周《隐藏的大脑》将为您带来增强社交联结与幸福感的实用指南。严谨研究显示，全球孤独问题日益严重。许多人感到无人可倾诉。交友可能很难，尤其对天生害羞者而言。苏塞克斯大学的心理学家吉莉安·桑德斯特罗姆正研究如何应对日益严峻的社会隔离挑战。

This week on Hidden Brain, we bring you a user's manual on how to boost your social connections and your happiness. Rigorous studies suggest that the problem of loneliness is growing around the world. Many people feel they don't have others in whom they can confide. Making friends can be hard, especially if you're someone who is naturally shy. At the University of Sussex, psychologist Jillian Sandstrom studies what we can do to combat the growing challenge of social isolation.

吉莉安·桑德斯特罗姆，欢迎来到《隐藏的大脑》。

Jillian Sandstrom, welcome to Hidden Brain.

你好，感谢邀请。

Hi. Thanks for having me.

吉莉安，我了解到你童年时有些内向害羞。能向我描述一下小时候的你吗？

Jillian, I understand that you were somewhat introverted and shy as a child. Can you describe the younger version of yourself to me?

我确实是个害羞的孩子，非常书呆子气。记得每次圣诞节去奶奶家，所有表亲叔伯都在时，我会躲在某个房间看书，找房子里最安静的地方坐着阅读。小时候的梦想是长大后能住在一座岛上——不是热带岛屿，而是只属于我一个人的岛。

I was definitely a shy kid. Very bookish, and so I remember, you know, any time we went to my grandma's house for Christmas and all the cousins and aunts and uncles were there, I would be off in a room somewhere with a book, just finding the quietest place in the house, just sitting there reading. And my dream when I was a kid was that I would grow up and I would live on an island. I don't mean like a tropical island. I mean an island that was just me.

我自己的岛，有座大图书馆，那就是我的梦想。

My own island, where I had a big library, and that was my dream.

青少年时期，吉莉安的害羞愈发严重，甚至发展到难以进行日常电话交谈的地步。

As a teenager, Jillian's shyness intensified. It got to the point she found it difficult to even have routine phone conversations.

天哪，那真是太糟糕了。每次打完电话我都想尽快挂断，然后我妈就会问：'你问这个了吗？说那个了吗？'而我当然什么都没问没说。

Oh gosh, that was the worst. And I felt like every time I did it, I would get off the phone as quickly as possible. And then and then my mom would say, well, you ask this? Did you say that? And of course, I never did any of those things.

所以光是想到要和人通电话就让我感到压力山大，焦虑不已。

And so it just felt really stressful and and anxious about about talking to someone on the phone.

我理解这对你尤其困难，因为你的家庭成员中有个和你截然相反的人。说说你父亲吧。

And I understand this must have been especially hard for you because you had one member of your family who was the polar opposite of you. Tell me about your dad.

其实我觉得全家人都和我相反，尤其是我爸。他简直就是人际交往的王者，特别擅长主动接近别人，找到共鸣点开启对话。所以我们去哪都要花很长时间，比如去趟超市要三小时，因为他会停下来和每个人聊天，特别是小孩。

Yeah, actually, feel like my whole family was the opposite of me, but especially my dad. So my dad is just I think he's sort of a king of talking to people. He had this knack for approaching people and starting figuring out how to connect with them and start a conversation. And so anywhere we went would take a really long time. You know, going to the grocery store would take three hours because he would stop and talk to everybody, especially kids.

他超爱逗小孩说话。看到五六岁模样的孩子就会问：'你几岁啦？12岁？'

He loves talking to kids. He'd always tease them and get them talking. But he would ask a kid who looked like they were about five or six years old. He'd say, How old are you? 12?

'13岁？'问些离谱的问题让他们忍不住反驳。或者问家里养没养宠物，是不是养了鳄鱼啊河马啊之类的荒唐问题，就为逗他们回应。

13? You know, just something ridiculous that would make them feel like they had to sort of disagree with what he'd said. Or he'd ask them, you know, if they had any pets at home and, you know, ask if they had a pet alligator or a pet hippopotamus. You know, just ridiculous things that would make them respond.

他这样做会让你觉得难堪吗？你会阻止他吗？

And did you really feel like you were embarrassed when he did these things? Did you try and prevent him from doing it?

我肯定会说：'爸你干嘛这样？'我完全理解不了他的这种冲动。'人家在买菜呢，根本不想和你说话好吗？'

I definitely would say, Dad, you know, why are you like, I couldn't understand the compulsion that he had. You know, like, why are you doing this, dad? They don't want to talk to you. You know? They're doing their grocery shopping.

谁会想停下来和陌生人聊天啊？

You know? Why would someone want to stop and talk to a complete stranger?

他通常怎么回应你？

And what would he say in response?

他只会无视我，继续享受他的谈话，因为他玩得很开心。他总爱说，你知道的，每个人都有故事。所以他特别喜欢结识新朋友并闲聊。

He would just ignore me and enjoy his conversation because he was having such a good time. He likes to say, you know, everybody has a story. So he just loves meeting people and having a chat.

成年后，吉莉安渴望隐形的性格开始产生实际后果。

As an adult, Jillian's desire to fade into the wallpaper began to have real consequences.

那时我大概25岁，独自乘飞机出差，本应很兴奋。我新婚不久，随了夫姓。当时广播里念了一串人名，好像是关于行李的事。我搞不清状况，但当他们喊'请桑德斯特姆乘客表明身份'时，我觉得不可能是叫我，因为那已经不是我的姓氏了。我知道该确认下，但太焦虑尴尬，最终没按下呼叫按钮找空乘。

So I was, I think, about 25 and I was on the plane on my own on this business trip which seemed quite exciting and And I'd just recently gotten married, so I'd taken on my husband's surname and they were making an announcement about a bunch of different people's names being called out, something to do with baggage. I didn't know what was going on. But at some point, they said, you know, would passenger Sandstrom please identify themselves? And I thought, they they couldn't mean me because, you know, that's not my name anymore. And I knew I should have checked, but I was too anxious and embarrassed to push that button and call over the flight attendant.

所以我没出声。结果可想而知——抵达后去行李转盘时，我的箱子果然不见了。最后只能买了件旅游纪念T恤，穿着它参加了商务旅行的首日会议。

So I didn't say anything. And so, of course, what happened is I got to the other end, got off the plane, went to the belt to collect my luggage, and of course, it wasn't there. And so I had to go and buy a tourist t shirt which is what I wore to the first day on this business trip.

行李事件几年后，吉莉安报名了多伦多的研究生课程。做了十年程序员后，她想尝试新领域，决定攻读心理学硕士。三十多岁的她环顾同窗，总担心自己不够聪明。

Several years after the luggage incident, Jillian signed up for a graduate program in Toronto. She had been working as a computer programmer for a decade but wanted to try something new. She decided to get a master's degree in psychology. Jillian was in her 30s. As she looked around at her graduate school cohort, she worried she wasn't smart enough.

但最折磨我的是那种自我怀疑——放弃原本发展顺利的职业对吗？这些同学都比我年轻许多。那种冒名顶替综合征的感觉不断袭来：我的决定正确吗？我真该来这里吗？

But on top of all that, I had the feeling, you know, I'd given up this other career that had been going really well, you know, did I make the right decision? Should I be here? You know, all these people are so much younger than me. So it's just this feeling, you know, the kind of impostor syndrome feeling of, you know, did I make the right decision? Should I be here?

不过很快，吉莉安适应了规律生活。这种生活不仅给了她条理，更带来了顿悟。

Soon enough, however, Jillian settled into a routine. It gave her more than structure. It gave her an insight.

我常去实验室做研究，但导师办公室在另一栋楼。往返时会经过街角的热狗摊——毕竟学校就在多伦多市中心。我和那位卖热狗女士渐渐形成了一种偶发性的默契关系。看到她在那儿，知道她也认得我，我们会微笑挥手。

I would go to the research lab to do my studies. But then my supervisor had an office in a different building. And so, when I walked between those two buildings, I would pass on the street corner there was a hotdog stand because I was at a university right downtown Toronto. And I started to develop, sort of accidentally, develop a relationship with a lady who worked at the hot dog stand that I would pass by. And seeing her there and knowing that she recognized me, you know, we'd smile, we'd wave.

甚至不确定我们是否交谈过，但这种关系就建立在极简的互动信号里。

I don't even know if we talked to each other, but we just had this relationship built on these little minimal signs.

某些日子当吉莉安过马路时，她注意到件怪事：热狗女士没出摊。奇怪的不是这个，而是她自己因此产生的情绪波动。

On some days as Jillian crossed the street she noticed something curious. The hot dog lady was not at her usual spot. That wasn't what was curious. The thing that struck Jillian was her own emotional reaction.

所以在我没见到热狗摊阿姨的日子里，我会感到失落，那种感觉不完全是孤独，更像是失去了锚点。你知道吗？因为我逐渐意识到，像热狗摊阿姨这样的人，我们生活中其实有无数这样的微小关系，它们看似无关紧要，却像丝线般编织进了我们的社会经纬中。

So on a day when I didn't see the hot dog lady, I would feel disappointed and kind of not lonely, but sort of unmoored. You know? Because I I think I came to think that the hot dog lady and people like her, like, the kind of we have lots of relationships like that, these little tiny relationships that maybe don't seem particularly important. But I feel like they kind of you're kind of woven into the social fabric. You know?

因此当她不在时，我会感到有些无所适从，仿佛失去了重心。

And so I felt a bit unmoored and uncentered when she was missing.

吉莉安，当你思考这类关系——比如你和热狗摊阿姨的互动时，它们显然不同于夫妻、亲子甚至同事关系。社会学家为这类关系创造了特定术语，能谈谈这些分类吗？

So, Gillian, when you think about these relationships that you're talking about, like your relationship with the hot dog lady, they are different than the kind of relationships you would have with a spouse or a child or even a colleague at work. And sociologists have come up with names for these kinds of relationships. Can you talk about the different terms they use for these kinds of relationships?

好的。1970年代社会学家马克·格兰诺维特将这类关系称为'弱联结'，与亲友间的'强联结'相对。定义起来很微妙，最初有人认为这类关系见面频率较低，但像热狗摊阿姨我几乎天天见，接送孩子时也可能每天遇到同一位家长，所以频率并非决定性因素。

Yes. So a sociologist in the 70s named Mark Granovetter coined these kind of relationships, weak ties, and as opposed to strong ties, are the ones with close friends and family. And it's tricky to come up with a definition because, you know, one of the original thoughts was there are people that we see less often. But I don't think that's necessarily true because people like the hot dog lady I would see here on a very regular basis or, you know, you might run into someone at the school drop off every day. So I don't think frequency is necessarily a factor here.

但亲友确实是我们最放松相处、愿意倾诉隐秘心事的人。而弱联结对象——虽然你可能对他们怀有好感——却不太会成为你分享私密心事的对象。

But definitely close friends and family are the people that you you feel the most comfortable with and you'd be most willing to sort of share your deepest, darkest secrets with. But, you know, weak ties are the you know, you can feel fondly towards them positively, but you're probably less likely to to feel like you'd want to confide in them and share something that feels very personal.

后来你开始攻读博士学位时，我记得是在伊丽莎白·邓恩的实验室——她曾是《隐藏大脑》的嘉宾。当邓恩问你研究方向时，你是怎么回答的？

So a little while later, you were starting a PhD. And I believe this was in the lab of Elizabeth Dunn, who we've previously had on Hidden Brain as a guest. And Liz Dunn asked you what you wanted to study. And how did you respond?

我说想研究热狗摊阿姨。她问'什么让你快乐？'——毕竟那是'快乐实验室'——我回答'热狗摊阿姨让我快乐'。

I said I wanted to study the hot dog lady. She said, What makes you happy? You know, her lab is the happy lab. What makes you happy? And I said, Well, the hot dog lady makes me happy.

这些与泛泛之交的日常微小互动——虽然不会邀请他们来家里喝酒——但这种熟悉感和联结感让我非常愉悦。我想知道这是个人体验还是普遍现象？人们是否都从这类关系中获得幸福感？

You know, having these little interactions throughout my day with people that I'm not really close to and would never, you know, invite over for a drink or anything. But, you know, having this familiarity and feeling of connection with those kind of people just really feels good to me. And I wanted to know, you know, is it just me or is this a more general thing? Do do people generally feel good from having these kind of relationships?

广告回来后，我们将探讨那些最意想不到的人如何深刻影响我们感知世界的方式。这里是《隐藏大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔姆。您正在收听《隐藏大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔姆。

When we return, how the people we least expect to matter in our lives can have a profound impact on the way we experience the world. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

当想到生命中最重要的人时，你多半会列举配偶、挚友、子女甚至爱宠。但那些边缘人物往往被忽视——上班途中的热狗摊主、地铁对面的乘客。即便日日相见，我们也常视而不见。若人生是部电影，他们连配角都算不上。

When you think about the most important people in your life, you probably think about a spouse or a best friend, your children, maybe even a beloved pet. Chances are you don't give much thought to the people on the periphery. The woman selling hot dogs on your way to work, the person sitting across from you on a train. Even when we encounter these people every day, we often ignore them. If our lives were a movie, they wouldn't even be supporting characters.

他们是生活中的配角。吉莉安·桑德斯特罗姆是萨塞克斯大学的心理学家，她研究这类人际关系，以及为何它们比我们大多数人想象的更为丰富。吉莉安，之前你进行了一项有趣的实验，用到了一个叫计数器的小工具。请谈谈那项研究。

They are the extras. Gillian Sandstrom is a psychologist at the University of Sussex. She studies these relationships, and why they are much richer than most of us think. Jillian, some time ago you ran an interesting experiment involving a little tool called the clicker. Tell me about that study.

我想知道，人们与弱关系者的互动次数是否与他们的幸福感相关？根据我的个人经验，我假设在那些与弱关系者有更多互动的日子里，人们可能会感到更快乐一些。最初我让学生们，后来扩展到社区居民，随身携带两个不同颜色的计数器。每当他们白天与人交谈时，就按一下对应的计数器——其中一个用来记录与强关系者的互动。

I wanted to know, you know, does the number of interactions that people have with weak ties sort of relate to their happiness? So my hypothesis was, you know, given my personal experience, maybe on the days that you have more interactions with weak ties, you feel a little bit happier. So I got students at first and then later just members of the community to carry around two clickers sort of in their pockets, two different colors. And every time that they talked to someone throughout the day, they were supposed to click. So one of the clickers was to count their interactions with strong ties.

强关系者就像你刚才提到的，比如密友或家人。另一个计数器则用来记录与弱关系者的互动次数。

That would be people like you just mentioned, you know, a close friend or family member. And then the other clicker was to count the number of interactions they had with weak ties.

如果志愿者在上课路上向不太熟悉的人微笑，就按弱关系计数器；如果午餐时与挚友交谈，就按强关系计数器。

If a volunteer smiled at someone they didn't know very well on their way to class, click, weak tie. If they had a conversation over lunch with their best friend, click, strong tie.

正如预期，与亲密者（强关系）的互动数量能预测幸福感和归属感。但独立来看，与弱关系者的互动次数同样重要。平均而言，某天与弱关系者互动较多的人，会比互动较少的人更快乐。此外，无论个人平均水平如何，当某天你比平时多与几个弱关系者交谈时，往往会比平时更快乐些。

And as you'd expect, you know, the number of interactions you had with your close others, your strong ties predicted happiness and feelings of belonging. But also, independently, the number of interactions that people had with weak ties also mattered. So on average, people who tended to have more interactions on a given day with weak ties tend to be a little happier than people who have fewer interactions with weak ties. But then also, regardless of what your personal average is, on a day when you talk to a few more weak ties than you usually do, you tend to be a little happier than you usually are.

吉莉安，我们之前讨论过社会学家马克·格拉诺维特关于弱关系的研究。如果没记错，他有篇著名论文《弱关系的力量》，阐述了生活中边缘人际关系对我们的重要性。许多研究证实了这点——比如求职时，通过泛泛之交的弱关系网络找到工作的概率远高于亲密关系网。格拉诺维特等人主要研究职场中弱关系的力量，而你的计数器实验揭示：弱关系的力量可能也深刻影响着我们的社交生活和情感健康。

So, Jillian, we talked earlier about the sociologist Mark Granovetter and his and his work on weak ties. If I recall correctly, he had a famous paper called the strength of weak ties, looking at how, in some ways, our connections to people who are peripheral in our lives are actually very important to us. And this has been born out in lots of studies looking at how if you're searching for a new job, for example, you're much more likely to find that job through a network of weak ties of people whom you know slightly compared to the network of people who are very close you. So Granovetter and others have looked primarily at the power of weak ties in the context of professional relationships. But in some ways, what you were realizing from the clicker study was that the strength of weak ties might also affect our social lives and our emotional well-being.

是的，我在探索弱关系未被重视的其他优势——这些关于幸福感和情感层面的益处。

So, yeah, I was looking at weak ties as having other advantages that maybe hadn't been looked at before. So these these well-being benefits and emotional benefits.

弱关系最大的来源是陌生人或不熟悉的人。能否谈谈陌生人与弱关系的区别？究竟什么样的人算陌生人，什么样的人算弱关系？

So the biggest source of weak ties comes from the world of strangers or people we don't know. Can we talk a moment about whether there's a difference between strangers and weak ties? I mean, what's the difference between someone who we would call a stranger and someone we would call a weak tie?

我认为区别其实很小。我对弱关系的定义是存在某种双向熟悉感的人。比如卖热狗的大婶是弱关系——初次交谈时她是陌生人，但当我们再次相遇并认出彼此时，她就不再是陌生人了。

I think the difference is actually pretty small. So I think a weak tie, my definition is just someone with whom you have sort of mutual familiarity. So the hot dog lady was a weak tie. The first time I talked to her, she was a stranger. But when we saw each other again and she recognized me and I recognized her, I think at that point, she's no longer a stranger.

她成为了弱关系。

She is a weak tie.

除了点击器研究外，你还开始进行其他关于弱关系力量的研究。能谈谈其中一些工作吗？我了解到你有一项研究是在咖啡店进行的。

You started to conduct other studies besides the clicker study looking at the power of weak ties. Can you talk about some of that work? One of your studies, I understand, took place in a coffee shop.

没错。我受到热狗摊女士的启发，想研究类似现象。我注意到很多人都有自己最喜欢的咖啡师，顾客进店时对方能叫出名字、记得常点饮品，这种互动让人感觉很好。

Right. So I, you know, sort of inspired by the hot dog lady. I thought the closest thing I could think of, you know, I really wanted to study that phenomenon. And I was aware that lots of people have sort of their favorite barista at the coffee shop. And people go into the coffee shop and the person knows their name and knows what their regular order is and it makes you feel really good.

我特别想研究这个现象。于是在温哥华招募路过星巴克的路人，给他们礼品卡，条件是购买咖啡时必须遵循指示。对部分人要求'尽量高效完成交易'——我说这对忙碌的咖啡师是种帮助。

And so I really wanted to study that phenomenon. So I asked people I recruited people walking past a Starbucks in Vancouver, gave them a gift card, and I said the only catch is that when you go in to buy your coffee, you have to follow some instructions. And some people, the instructions were, you know, when you go in to buy your coffee, just be as efficient as possible. And I I tried to tell people this would be a good thing. The barista's busy and just wants to get through their day and you'd be helping them out.

让他们备好零钱避免闲聊（点单必要的对话除外）。另一组人则被告知'尝试建立真诚社交互动'：保持微笑、眼神交流并简短寒暄。很多人表示本来就会这样做。

So have your money ready and avoid unnecessary conversation. I mean, you have to talk to place your order. And then the other group of people, I said, okay, when you go in, try to turn it into a real genuine social interaction. So smile, make eye contact, and have a little chat. And, you know, plenty of people said they do this anyway.

我说那就更热情些。结果发现，那些进行过微小社交互动的人——像对待熟识咖啡师那样交流后——情绪更好，对星巴克体验更满意，人际联结感也更强。

And I said, Well, just amp it up. Know, do it even more than you usually do. And so, people bought their coffee, followed the instructions, and then when they came out, I asked them to fill out a short survey. And what we found was that people who'd had this just tiny little social interaction, you know, had treated the barista as if they would treat one who knew their name and knew their order. If they had that social interaction, they were in a better mood and they felt more satisfied with their Starbucks experience and they felt a greater sense of connection to other people.

朱利安的研究中，人们有动力与陌生人交谈。但在现实世界，这种交流可能令人尴尬。我们担心寒暄不受欢迎，害怕被认作讨厌、愚蠢或不讨喜——这档节目之前讨论过这种忧虑。

In Julian's study, people had an incentive to talk to strangers. In the real world, talking to people you don't know can be awkward. We worry our small talk won't be well received. We fear that people will think we're obnoxious, silly, or unlikable. We've talked about this trepidation on the show before.

在心理学家埃里卡·布思比参与的节目里，她称之为'好感度差距'：即我们以为他人对我们的看法与实际看法之间的差异。朱利安在自己的研究中也发现了这种现象的证据。

In our episode featuring the psychologist Erica Boothby, she called it the liking gap. It's the gap between how we believe others see us and what they actually see. Julian has found evidence of the liking gap phenomenon in her own research.

我们发现初次交谈后，双方都会低估对方对自己的好感度。脑海中那个消极声音总在问'我为什么说这个？他们听懂了吗？我出丑了吗？'

What we find is that after two people talk for the first time, they each tend to think that the other person liked them less than they actually did. So, you know, we have this negative voice in our head that says, oh, you know, why did I say that? Why did I not say that? Did, you know, did they understand me? Did I embarrass myself?

我们倾向于听信这种消极声音，认为交流很糟糕。但对方其实也在自我怀疑，根本不会注意到你认为的失误。读到埃里卡关于'好感度差距'的论文摘要时，我意识到自己就有相关数据。

And we tend to listen to that negative voice and think that everything went horribly wrong. But our partner doesn't have that say, you know, they're probably doing the same thing, right? So they don't even notice the thing that you think went horribly wrong because they're stuck in their own head thinking about what they did wrong. So I read the abstract that Erica was part of where she was talking about the lichen gap. And I thought, Oh, I have data.

于是发邮件联系她，从此开始合作。这正是主动联系陌生人的绝佳范例。

We should talk. And so I reached out to her via email, and we've been collaborating ever since. So it's a great example of reaching out to a stranger.

我在想，吉莉安，你是否能谈谈我们的直觉和预测错误有时是如何被社会传递给我们的信息所放大的。我想给你播放一则关于孩子们应该如何对待陌生人的旧公共服务公告。

I'm wondering, Jillian, if you can talk a moment about how our intuitions and forecasting errors are sometimes compounded by the messages we receive from society. I wanna play you an old public service announcement about how children should think about strangers.

大多数人都喜欢小孩子。但有些成年人是坏人。那些坏人看起来像好人，像任何妈妈或爸爸。所以这就是为什么你不能和你遇到的陌生人说话。不要让他们给你任何玩具或任何吃的东西。

Most people love a little child. Some grown ups, though, are bad. The bad ones look like good ones, like any mom or dad. So that is why you must not talk to strangers that you meet. Don't let them give you any toys or anything to eat.

如果你不认识的人给你零食，记住他的长相和说话方式，但要快速跑向街道。

If someone that you do not know should offer you a treat, remember how he looks and talks, but run fast up the street.

快速跑开。所以不仅仅是我们的内部信息出错了，吉莉安。有时外部信息也在说，要保持距离。

Run fast. So it's not just our internal messaging that gets it wrong, Jillian. Sometimes the external messaging is also saying, keep to yourself.

是的，绝对如此。我认为规范和文化信息对我们所做的有很大影响。我认为这真的很难，不是吗？因为我们想要传达的是一个非常微妙的信息。因为我们不想让人们害怕与他人交谈，但你知道，我们确实需要注意个人安全。

Yes, absolutely. And I think norms and those kind of cultural messages make a huge difference to what we do. I think it's really hard, isn't it? Because it's a very nuanced message that we want to convey. Because we don't want to make people scared to talk to others, but, you know, we do need to be aware of our personal safety.

而且，我不是建议人们走进黑暗的小巷开始与人交谈。但在大多数情况下，如果你在一个公共场所，周围有其他人，与陌生人交谈有很多好处。

And, I'm suggesting that people go down a dark alley and start talking to people. But in most situations, if you're in a public place surrounded by other people, there's so many benefits to talking to strangers.

我想谈谈你在自己的生活中意识到的一些好处。你实际上尝试了践行你的研究并实践你所宣扬的。告诉我一次你在火车上与一位拿着非常精美纸杯蛋糕的女士的有趣对话。

I'd like to talk about some of those benefits that you yourself have realized in your own life. You've actually tried to walk the talk of your research and practice what you've preached. Tell me about a time that you had an interesting conversation on the the train with a woman who was carrying a very fancy cupcake.

是的。这是我记得第一次刻意与陌生人开始的对话之一。如果我想想，我之前肯定也有过对话，但这次对我来说非常难忘，我想是因为我觉得我是刻意这样做的，而不是偶然发生的。当时我在多伦多的火车上，那是在所有这些非常精美的纸杯蛋糕店刚刚兴起的时候。火车上的这位女士拿着一个看起来非常美丽、美味、奢华的纸杯蛋糕。

Yes. This was one of the first conversations that I can remember sort of deliberately starting with a stranger. And if I think about it, I've definitely had conversations before then, but but this is one that was really memorable to me, I think because it felt like I deliberately done it rather than it just sort of happening accidentally. And so I was on I was on the train in Toronto and it was, sort of during the time when all these very fancy cupcake shops were coming out. And this woman on the train had this beautiful, just delicious looking, decadent cupcake.

所以我忍不住问她关于蛋糕的事。基本上只是想评论这个蛋糕有多漂亮。于是我们开始交谈，我想可能是她的生日什么的，她在回忆其他生日，她告诉我过去她曾去过南非旅行，在那里她骑过鸵鸟。你知道，想想看，我们是怎么从纸杯蛋糕谈到鸵鸟的？

And and so I I couldn't help but ask her about it. Basically, just wanted to comment on how beautiful this cupcake was. And so we started talking and I think maybe it was her birthday or something and she was reminiscing about other birthdays and she told me that in the past she had gone on a trip to South Africa And when she was there, she had ridden an ostrich. And, you know, you think about it. How did we get from cupcakes to ostriches?

我不知道。所以我真的被吸引住了。我只是觉得，这太神奇了。如果我没有和一个完全陌生的人交谈，我永远不会知道这些。

I don't know. And so I was really hooked. I just thought, this is amazing. Like, I would never have known this if I hadn't talked to a complete stranger.

作为心理学家的吉莉安更进一步。她意识到，弱关系是我们生活中新奇的来源。一旦有了这个洞见，它就不断出现在她的生活中。

Jillian, being a psychologist, went a step further. She realized that weak dies are a source of novelty in our lives. Once she had this insight, it started to pop up all the time.

是啊。我学到了各种各样有趣的事情。比如，我记得在飞机上和一位来自斯洛文尼亚的人聊天，他告诉我斯洛文尼亚70%的面积是森林。我当时就想，总有一天我要去斯洛文尼亚看看，因为这听起来太棒了。森林是内向者的绝佳去处。

Yeah. I've learned all sorts of things that, you know, I found interesting. Like, I remember talking to someone on a plane who was from Slovenia who told me that Slovenia is 70% forest. And I thought, okay, someday I need to go to Slovenia because that sounds awesome. Forests are a great place for an introvert.

对吧？我记得在大学校车上和人聊天时，有人告诉我中国有个地区大多数人——或者说有大量人口——和我一样长着红头发。我回家立刻搜索，发现确实如此。我还收到过陌生人送的免费蔬菜。有次火车停运时，一对夫妇让我搭便车，这样我就不用深夜改乘公交了。

Right? I remember talking to someone on the bus out at the university who told me that there was a region in China where the majority of people or there was a huge number of people who have red hair like me. And I went home and googled it right away and found that indeed it was true. I have had free vegetables from people. I got a ride from a couple once that saved me from having to you know, the train wasn't running, and so they gave me a ride so that I didn't have to take the bus instead of the train late at night.

当时我和丈夫在一起，感觉很安全。当然不是建议人们随便上陌生人的车，但因为我们聊了很久，我觉得很放心。和陌生人交谈后，我加入了一个读书俱乐部。我遇到过各种有趣的人。

I was with my husband. I felt very safe about it. Again, not suggesting people get in a stranger's car, but I felt comfortable having talked to them for ages first. I joined a book club after talking to a stranger. I've talked to all sorts of different interesting kinds of people.

我和共济会成员聊过天，和戏剧假发师交谈过，还认识过儿童图书作者和诗人。总之遇到了许多有趣的人，进行了很多有趣的对话。

I've talked to Freemasons. I talked to someone who made theatrical wigs. I've talked to children's book authors and a poet. And I don't know. I've just met all sorts of really interesting people and just had some really interesting conversations.

当然也有很多平淡无奇的闲聊。

And also a lot of just sort of average meh conversations.

由于自身偏见，我们常常忽视与陌生人交谈的好处。我们担心别人不喜欢自己，认为寒暄都是废话。实际上，这些互动对我们的幸福感有着微妙而重要的影响。事实证明，弱关系为生活提供了巨大价值。

We often fail to see the benefits of talking to strangers because of our own biases. We worry that people won't like us. We assume that small talk is empty talk. In reality, these interactions have a subtle but significant effect on our happiness. Weak dies, it turns out, offer tremendous value in our lives.

但在新冠疫情期间，我们都经历了这些联系的灾难性流失。

But during the COVID-nineteen pandemic, of us have experienced a catastrophic loss of these connections.

疫情期间，人们通常能想办法与最亲近的人保持联系。但对于熟人，有时我们甚至不知道如何联系他们。他们只是日常生活中偶然相遇的人。由于生活模式改变，我们就见不到他们了。比如宠物店的巴里，他总会记得我，问候我的猫咪。

During the pandemic, people generally found ways to stay in touch with the people they were closest to. But with acquaintances, sometimes we don't even know how to reach them. They're just the people that we happen to cross paths with during the course of our day. So because the patterns of our day change, we just didn't see them. Know, I had Barry at the pet store who would who would remember me and recognize me and ask about my cats.

但我不可能主动联系宠物店的巴里，对吧？我甚至不知道该怎么联系。所以我觉得疫情对我们弱关系的影响尤为严重。

You know, I wouldn't reach out to Barry at the pet store, would I? I mean, I I don't even know how to do that. So I think we've kind of, you know, the the pandemic sort of disproportionately affected our relationships with with weak ties.

与此同时，吉莉安，我认为很多人都在反映，即便是那些喜欢居家办公、觉得居家办公确实让他们有更多时间陪伴家人、实现更好工作生活平衡的人，也有许多人表示，他们在某些重要方面感觉与世界脱节了。或许他们正在经历的，正是你这里所谈论的情况。你知道，你的配偶依然是你的配偶，孩子依然是孩子，同事也依然是同事。

And and at the same time, Jillian, I think a lot of people are reporting, you know, even people who enjoy working from home and feel like working from home has actually allowed them to spend more time with family and better have a better work life balance, many people then report, you know, I somehow feel cut off from from the world in important ways. And perhaps part of what they're experiencing is what you're talking about here. You know, your spouse is still your spouse. Your child is still your child. Your coworker is still your coworker.

而你与他们的相处方式已经固定。弱联系才是为生活带来惊喜和不可预测性的因素。

And you have fixed ways of dealing with them. Weak ties are what bring in surprise and unpredictability into your life.

我认为确实如此。而且这种影响可能比人们想象的要更大或有所不同。当我们与密友交谈时，很可能已经在看相同的网飞剧集，了解彼此的所有观点。由于没人能外出体验新事物，我们几乎没什么新鲜话题可聊。

I think that's true. And I think that that has a bigger or maybe different impact than people think. So talking to our close friends, we're probably already watching the same shows on Netflix. We're, you know, we already know all their opinions. We sort of have nothing new to talk about because nobody was able to go out and do new things.

因此我认为，正是弱联系让我们接触到新信息、新故事或新冒险。由于与这些联系隔绝，我们确实错失了日常生活中本该获得的大量新鲜体验。

And so I think, you know, it's it's the weak ties that sort of get us access to new kinds of information or new stories or new adventures. And because we were cut off from them, I think we really missed out on a huge portion of the novelty that we tend to get day to day.

在日常活动中，我们有无数的机会与他人建立联系。我们常常将这些机会视为理所当然。稍后回来时，我们将探讨充分利用工作日的技巧与策略。您正在收听的是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

As we go about our daily routines, there are countless opportunities to connect with others. We often take these opportunities for granted. When we come back, techniques and strategies for making the most of our weekdays. You are listening to Hidden Brain. I am Shankar Vedanta.

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。心理学家吉莉安·桑德斯特罗姆通过多项研究发现，当人们与陌生人或仅有浅交的人进行大量随意交谈时，他们会更快乐。为你做三明治的食堂员工、泳池照看孩子的救生员、剧院的引座员——大多数人并不重视这些关系，或许因为它们转瞬即逝。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Across a number of research studies, psychologist Gillian Sandstrom has found that people are happier when they have lots of casual conversations with strangers or people they know only slightly. The cafeteria worker who makes you a sandwich, the lifeguard who watches over your kids at the swimming pool, an usher at the theater. Most people don't prioritize these relationships, perhaps because they are fleeting.

吉莉安从小害羞，但一直尝试在与陌生人交谈时变得更外向。近年来，她几乎发展出一套与陌生人交谈的科学方法。她发现开启对话、维持对话和结束对话存在不同的心理障碍，每个问题都需要独特的解决方案。她向我解释了打破僵局面临的挑战。

Jillian grew up shy but has tried to become more outgoing in conversations with strangers. In recent years she has developed something of a science on how to go about talking to strangers. She has discovered that there are distinct psychological problems in starting conversations, maintaining conversations, and ending conversations and each problem requires its own solution. She explained to me the challenge involved with breaking the ice.

读博期间，我经常在公交车上与人攀谈。这并非常见行为——公交车上通常没人交谈。所以当我这么做时，人们最初的本能反应是：我认识你吗？我想他们会觉得，也许这就是你跟我说话的原因。

When I was doing my PhD, I used to talk to people on the bus all the time. And it wasn't a common thing to do. You don't talk to people on the bus. So, when I would do that, I think people's original reaction, their initial gut reaction is, Do I know you? I think that's, you know, they think, Maybe that's why you're talking to me.

可能我们之前见过。随后他们意识到：糟糕，我不认识你。接着他们会想：怎么回事？你想要什么？到底发生什么了？

Maybe I've met you before. And then they realize, Uh-oh, I don't know you. Then they think, Uh-oh, what is happening here? What do you want? You know, what is going on?

然后我认为会进入第三阶段：哦，你只是友善而已。不错。接着就能愉快聊天了。所以我觉得有时候人们需要意识到，尴尬时刻必然存在，因为不幸的是，这确实不符合常规。人们需要时间去理解当下发生的事。

And then I think you get to the third phase, which is just, oh, you're being friendly. Cool. And then you have a nice chat. So I think sometimes people, you know, it's you have to be aware that there is gonna be that awkward moment because, unfortunately, it is just not the norm. And so people have to sort of make sense of what's going on.

但我认为如果你能稍加耐心，几乎总能达到那个阶段——人们会接受你只是出于友好的本意。

But I think if you can be a little bit patient, you know, you almost always get to that stage where people can accept that you're just being friendly.

打破僵局首先需要...打破坚冰。你必须接受会有那么几个瞬间对方可能心存戒备，也可能遇到明显不想闲聊的对象。俗话说得好，要察言观色。

Breaking the ice involves, well, breaking the ice. You have to accept there are going to be a few moments where the other person might be wary. There may also be situations where someone clearly does not want to be engaged in a chat. As they say, read the room.

记得不久前在伦敦地铁上，那里的潜规则是禁止与陌生人交谈。主动搭话简直是在挑战所有社交准则。但我确实在地铁上有过几次精彩对话，所以还是坚持这么做。有次我转向右侧乘客试图聊天，对方虽然礼貌回应...

I can think of a time not too long ago when I was on the tube in London, and the unwritten rule is that you do not talk to people on the tube. So it's just breaking all of the norms to do it. But I've had some really great chats on the tube, so I just keep doing it. But I remember once being on the tube and turning to the person sitting on my right and trying to start a conversation. And, you know, she was polite.

我记得开场白大概是'今天过得怎样？工作忙吗？'她确实回答了，但从肢体语言明显看出她不想交谈——正拿出书本准备阅读。于是我识趣地...

She you I think I started to say, you know, how are you? Have you had a busy day? And, you know, she responded, but it was very clear from her body language that she just did not want to talk. She was getting out a book and sort of getting herself set up and plugged in, whatever. And so I thought, okay.

这很正常。我们不该强求他人交流。所以我直接转头和左边乘客攀谈，结果相谈甚欢。人们总过度担心被拒绝——那位女士不愿交谈可能有上百种原因：可能不喜欢我，也可能只是性格害羞、正在读本好书...

That's fine. You know, I I I don't think we should push ourselves on people. And and so I literally turned my head to the person sitting on my left, and I started talking to them, and we had a really nice chat. People worry too much about rejection because, first of all, I don't know why that woman didn't wanna talk to me, but, you know, there's a 100 reasons, and I could choose to believe that she didn't like me or something about me. But I could also choose to believe that, you know, like I said, maybe she's shy, maybe she's anxious, maybe she just really is reading an amazing book and, you know, I get it.

所以我选择相信非个人化的原因。毕竟多数人还是愿意交流的，左边乘客更积极也在意料之中。

So, you know, I can choose to believe something that isn't so personally negative and just, you know, most people do wanna talk and, you know, it didn't surprise me that the person on my left was a bit more willing.

与陌生人交谈的第二道难关是维持对话。如果说破冰令人紧张，那么冷场就更可怕了。

The second problem people face in talking to strangers is in maintaining the conversation. If breaking the ice feels scary for many people, awkward silences can be terrifying.

提前设想应对方案很有帮助：可以分享自身经历、评论时事新闻、主动提问，或者深呼吸等待转机——关键是要保持镇定。

I think it helps to sort of pre think, you know, what might I do if that happened? It could be things like, well, I'll share something about myself, or I'll comment on something that was in the news today, or I'll ask them a question, or I'll take a breath and just wait a moment and it'll be fine, but I have to make sure I don't panic. That would be a good thing to think about.

吉莉安指出，有时问题不在于冷场，而是原本有趣的对话突然跑偏。

Sometimes, Jillian says, the problem is not an awkward silence, but a perfectly interesting conversation that suddenly goes sideways.

我曾看见拿渔网的男子在捞鱼，好奇上前询问。他解释说住在附近，这种情况时有发生。

I saw this man with a net, and he was scooping up fish. And I thought, what in the heck is he doing? And so I went up and and I asked him. I said, what are you doing? And and he said he lived nearby, and he said, you know, this happens sometimes.

当时下着大雨，鱼群被冲往下游，困在了某处。水位退去后，它们陷入了大麻烦。我只是在抓这些鱼，然后把它们转移到安全的地方。我当时想，哇，这人简直是鱼类英雄，这故事太酷了。

We get a heavy rain, and the fish sort of wash downstream, and they get stuck somewhere. And then the water goes down, and and they're in big trouble. So I'm just, you know, catching the fish and moving them to somewhere where they're safe. And I thought, oh, this is amazing. This guy's a fish hero, and what a cool story.

你知道吗？我们继续聊着，话题渐渐从鱼身上移开。那时疫情刚爆发，所以不可避免地谈到了这个。结果我发现他认为疫情是场骗局，觉得政府在编故事。这当然不是我的观点。

You know? And so we we continued talking, and the conversation shifted away from the fish. And, you know, it was early days in the pandemic, so inevitably, we ended up talking about that. And I discovered that that he he thought that the pandemic was a hoax and, you know, that the government was making up stories. You know, that's not my view.

我无法理解为什么有人会这么想。政府为什么要这么做呢？于是我开始思考：这个人是谁？到底怎么回事？他明明是鱼类英雄啊。一个拯救鱼的人怎么会持有这种观点？你永远无法真正了解一个人，对吧？

I couldn't understand why someone would think that way. You know, why would the government do that? And so I started to think, who is this person, and what's going on here? Here they are, a fish hero. How is a fish hero also having these You just never know someone, do you?

吉尔莲，你当时是不是悄悄退出了对话？后来你怎么做的？

Did sort of sidle away from the conversation at that point, Jillian? What did you do?

我认为通过交谈和倾听，我们可以为他人带来益处。但根据我的经验，这种情况其实很罕见——我通常不会和完全陌生的人讨论任何敏感话题，对话内容往往无关痛痒且轻松愉快，不会涉及政治、宗教这些我们在感恩节餐桌上都会回避的沉重话题。

You know, I just think that we can serve a benefit to other people by talking to them and by listening to them. So I think it's pretty rare, at least in my own experience. I don't tend to get into any kind of heated topics when I'm talking to a complete stranger. It's usually fairly innocuous and and fun. It doesn't get into politics and religion and all the heavy stuff that we avoid at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

我只是想找点乐子互动而已，所以就让他说了一会儿。不过后来对话自然结束了，我也就离开了。

You know, I'm just seeking out a fun interaction. So I just let him talk a little bit. But, yeah, it just sort of drew to a natural close, I moved on.

能谈谈吗？当我们经历尴尬对话，或是起初有趣却走向奇怪的谈话时，很多人会得出错误结论——认为下一次对话很可能也会不愉快。某种程度上，我们高估了负面交流的可能性。

Can you talk a little bit about how when we have conversations that are awkward or conversations that start off being interesting but end up in in an odd place, many of us draw the wrong conclusion from this, which is that the next conversation is also likely to be difficult, or the next conversation is likely to be unpleasant. In some ways, we overcount the likelihood of negative interactions.

我在实验室做过一系列研究：先让人们预测对话走向，再让他们与陌生人实际交谈，最后汇报感受。结果发现人们事前的担忧程度很高，但实际交谈后都说那些担心根本没发生。可如果让他们预测立即进行下一次对话的情形，那些恐惧又会悄悄浮现——虽不及研究前的程度，但明显高于刚经历过愉快对话后应有的预期。这说明人们很难进行正确归纳。

So, yeah, I've run a bunch of studies in the lab where I've asked people to predict how a conversation will go, then they actually have a conversation with a stranger, and then they tell me how it went. And the people's worries before the conversation are quite high, but after having the conversation, they say, you know, none of those things actually happened. But if you ask them to predict what would happen if they had another conversation right now, those fears sort of creep back up. Not all the way to the level that they were at before the study, but definitely higher than they should be based on having just had a pleasant conversation. So it seems that people have trouble generalizing.

这其实也有道理，毕竟每个人都是独特的。很容易就会想：虽然和这个人聊得愉快，但凭什么认为下个人也会这样呢？

And, you know, it makes some sense because every human is unique. Right? So it'd be easy to think, well, just because I had a nice conversation with this person, why would I expect to have a nice conversation with the next person?

吉尔莲想弄清楚，能否扭转人们低估良性对话概率、高估糟糕对话风险的倾向。

Gillian wanted to figure out if she could override people's tendency to undercount the likelihood of good conversations and overcount the risk of bad conversations.

我能想到解决这个问题的唯一方法，就是让人们进行大量对话，这样他们才能开始看到一种模式，意识到大多数对话其实是愉快的。但当人们连一次与陌生人的对话都不愿意进行时，更不用说多次了，我该如何实现这一点呢？于是，我‘借用’了一个点子。我在想，我需要把这件事变成一场游戏，需要让它变得有趣。

The only way I can think of to fix this would be to get people to have a lot of conversations so they can start to see a pattern, start to see that most of these conversations are pleasant. But how am I gonna do that when people don't even wanna have one conversation with a stranger, let alone lots? And so I kind of stole an idea. I was thinking, you know, I need people to I need to turn it into a game. I need to make it fun somehow.

所以我考虑过把它变成宾果游戏之类的。但我们系一位研究员在楼里张贴了海报，他们正在招募参与者进行一项关于记忆的寻宝游戏研究。但我突然想到——寻宝游戏！

And so I was thinking, maybe I could turn it into a bingo game or something. But a researcher in my department had placed posters around the building. They were recruiting people for a study involving a scavenger hunt. And it was a study about memory. But I thought, oh, scavenger hunt.

我可以设计一个需要寻找并和陌生人交谈的寻宝游戏。

I could get people to do a scavenger hunt game that involves finding and talking to strangers.

需要和陌生人交谈的寻宝游戏是什么？我以为寻宝游戏是关于寻找宝藏的。

What was the scavenger hunt game that involves talking to strangers? I thought scavenger hunts are about finding treasure.

陌生人和与他们的对话就是宝藏啊！听着，我列了一堆任务清单，比如‘找个戴帽子的人’或‘找个正在喝咖啡的人’，总共设计了大约30个任务。我希望这些任务都很简单——

Well, people and conversations with strangers are treasure. Come on! So yeah, I came up with a list of missions that were things like, you know, find someone who's wearing a hat or find someone who's drinking a coffee. I came up with a whole list of missions, about 30 of them. And, you know, I wanted them to be easy.

不像大多数寻宝游戏会故意设置难点让人无法完成所有任务。我希望参与者能完成每一个任务。

I didn't you know, most scavenger hunts, you're trying to make it a little tricky so people can't find everything, right? But I wanted people to be able to accomplish every single mission.

部分志愿者只需观察找到的陌生人，另一些则需主动与陌生人展开对话。

Some volunteers were asked to merely observe the strangers they found. Others had to engage the strangers in conversation.

研究发现，随着实验推进，参与者每天对遭拒的担忧逐渐减少，对开启、维持和结束对话的信心与日俱增。这种渐进式改善非常明显，重复练习至关重要——仅进行一次对话远远不够。即使在寻宝游戏结束一周后，这种持续积累的进步仍然存在，人们对与陌生人交谈仍保持着更积极的态度。

We found that over the course of the study, every day, people reported being less and less worried about being rejected by the people they approached and more and more confident in their ability to start and maintain and end the conversation. And so it really did seem that there was this gradual improvement and that repeated practice was important. Just having one conversation was not enough. It was this gradual improvement over time that stuck even a week after the scavenger hunt had ended. People still had more positive, feelings towards talking to strangers.

朱莉安逐渐意识到，仅仅明白‘与陌生人交谈可能很有趣’还不够，真正重要的是实践。为此她开发了名为《如何与陌生人交谈》的培训课程。

Julian began to see how important it was to not just have the insight that talking to strangers could be fun, but to actually practice doing it. She has developed a workshop to get people to practice these skills. It's called How to Talk to Strangers.

这些课程本身成了研究素材，而研究成果又反哺课程改进。但本质上这就是大型练习场——聚集一群想学习与陌生人交谈技巧的人。工作坊开始前，房间里总是安静得能听见蟋蟀叫，因为大家都感到尴尬，不知道接下来会发生什么。

The workshops sort of became research and then the research fed back into the workshops. But really, it's just a big practice session. You know, you're bringing in a bunch of people who think they'd like to learn more how to talk to strangers. And so before the workshop starts, it's very quiet in the room. There's crickets because everyone feels a bit awkward and they don't know what to do, what's going to happen.

因此我总以这样的方式开启工作坊：'好，现在请转向身旁的人开始交谈'。接着就会出现一个美妙的场景——房间里瞬间充满嗡嗡的交谈声，就像'天啊，大家真的在聊天了'。之后要让大家停下来反而很困难。

And so I always start the workshop by just saying, Okay, you have to turn to someone sitting next to you and just have a conversation right now. And then it's just this beautiful moment because there's this buzz in the room, it's just like, Oh my God, people are talking. And then it's really hard to shut people up.

吉尔莲，你自己有没有用过破冰技巧？作为越来越擅长与陌生人交谈的人，你通常会找什么话题？怎么开启对话？具体会怎么做？

Do do you have icebreakers yourself that you've used, Jillian, in terms as you've become a better conversationalist and better at talking to strangers? What do you go up and talk to strangers about? How do you how do you start a conversation? What do you do?

有的。我现在有几个固定开场方式。可能这特别有英国特色——大家总开玩笑说要从天气聊起对吧？

Yeah. Have a few different go to methods now. So maybe it's especially an English thing. They joke about it all the time, but it's talk about the weather. Right?

我认为我们这样做是因为天气是共同处境。对吧？这是双方正在同时经历的事情。这个原则其实可以更广泛运用——当你和某人同处一个时空，你们就已经有了多种共同点。

And I think the reason we do that is because it's a shared circumstance. Right? It's something we're both experiencing at the same time. So I think that principle can be used more broadly. So if you're in the same place as this person at the same time, then you have various things in common with them already.

所以可以评论你们所处的共同场景。比如在公交车上遇到不寻常的事，突然间你们就成了'队友'——平时绝不交谈的人也会因为共同经历而开口。有时我会换种方式，通过指出环境中观察到的事物，比如在公园里会特意把欢快玩耍的小狗指给路人看。

So you can comment on the shared situation that you happen to be in. If you're on a bus or something and something unusual happens, then all of a sudden you're all on the same team, aren't you? Everybody talks when they never would have talked before because you've experienced this situation together. But sometimes I do it in a different way, which is by pointing out something that I'm seeing in the environment. So sometimes I'll I'll point out happy, playful dogs to someone else that's walking past me in the park and just draw their attention to it.

或是提醒别人注意春天绽放的花朵。这也关联到我最后一个主要技巧：激发你的好奇心。我数不清有多少对话始于直接走过去问'你在做什么？'——就像我对那位'救鱼英雄'做的那样。当时看见他用网兜捞鱼，就忍不住好奇。

Or I've pointed out the spring flowers that are popping up. But that's also linked to sort of the last sort of main technique I use, which is just to tap into your curiosity. So I can't tell you how many conversations I've started just by going up to someone and saying, what you doing? Like I did with the fish hero. You know, I saw him scooping up fish in a net, and I thought, what is he doing?

我用这个方法开启过无数对话。不过要注意语气——不能听起来像质问，必须带着好奇的轻快感，让对方感觉这只是有趣的好奇而非指责。

And so I've gone up to lots of different people. I think you have to be a little careful because you don't want it to come across as accusatory. It has to come across as curious. So you have to do it with this sort of lightness in your voice that it's just out of curiosity and fun rather than being an accusation.

有研究表明，对话不会在一方想结束时停止，甚至双方都想结束时还会继续——因为人们太不擅长结束对话了。经常远超过双方享受的时长。吉尔莲，你是怎么结束与陌生人对话的？

So there have been studies that found that conversations don't end when, you know, one party wants them to end, and they don't even end when both parties want them to end, partly because people are so uncomfortable with terminating conversations. Conversations can go well past the point. They're enjoyable for either party. How do you get out of conversations with strangers, Jillian?

说实话我还在摸索。多数情况我在公园散步时聊天，结束对话就像直接走开那么简单。但在公交或飞机上就不同——人们通常等到降落前15分钟才交谈，否则就得困在那里整个航程。

Yeah. I'm I really am still trying to work that out. I mean, most of the time that I talk to strangers, I'm out, walking around the park or something, and it's really easy to just sort of walk away when you're finished as opposed to being on a bus or sitting next to someone on the plane. People don't talk until it's fifteen minutes before the landing because otherwise they're stuck there for the whole flight. Right?

我确实常陷入无法脱身的对话，至今仍不擅长处理。就像我办的'陌生人交谈工作坊'里，大家能想出100种开场方式，却没人知道怎么结束。集体讨论时列出的全是借口，比如'我要去洗手间'这类谎言。

But I've definitely gotten stuck in conversations, and I feel like I'm still not very good at figuring out how to get out of them. And, you know, I've run these how to talk to strangers workshops, and I've I like I said earlier, people can come up with a 100 ways to start a conversation. Nobody really knows how to end them. Most of the time when people are brainstorming, it's just a list of lies. It's just, you know, I need to go to the bathroom.

我需要打个电话。

I need to make a phone call.

或者发短信给朋友，让他在谈话中途打给你，这样你就能借故离开。

Or texting a friend and asking a friend to call you in the middle of a conversation so that you can be pulled away.

没错。是的，我们都在电视上看过这样的桥段。如果七分钟后没收到我的消息，就打给我帮我脱身。这要看具体情况。比如在联谊会或社交活动上，本来就是要和多人交谈的场合，你可以用些小技巧，比如把对方介绍给别人然后抽身。

Right. Yes, we've all seen those episodes on TV. If you haven't heard from me, call me in seven minutes and help me get out of this. It depends on the situation. Like if it's a mixer or a networking event where it's sort of intended for people to talk to multiple partners, then there are some sort of clever things you can do, like introduce the person to someone else and then move on.

但我在这些研讨会上教学时，总有一个人——真的就一个人——会说他们直接感谢对方的交谈，示意对话该结束了，甚至明确说出来：'和你聊天很愉快，但我想我们该去别处了。'其他人都会用惊讶的眼神看着这个人，仿佛在说'还能这样？'这恰恰说明这种做法有多罕见。但为什么不呢？

But when I've taught these workshops, there's always one person, and I think it's literally one person, who says, you know, that they just thank the person for the conversation and sort of signal that it's over and it's time to move on and maybe even explicitly say that, you know. It's been nice talking to you, but I think it's time for us to go now. And everyone looks at this person and and kind of says, You can do that? So, you know, that tells me how uncommon it is. But, you know, why not?

所以我最近经常尝试这样做：直接感谢对方并表示认可。这才是我们想要的，对吧？最糟糕的是对方不直说，而是开始东张西望、坐立不安。如果有人能直接说'谢谢，我要去别处了'反而好得多。

So I've definitely been trying to do that more often is to just, you know, thank the person, acknowledge You know, I think that's what we want, right? We don't It's very unpleasant when you're talking to someone, and instead of saying that, they just start looking around, and you can see them kind of fidget. Like, that's the worst, right? It would be much better if someone just said, thank you, and, you know, I'm gonna move on now.

吉尔莲，我好奇这些研讨会上是否有人提出性别问题。这么问是因为之前我们在Reddit看到篇帖子。一位叫莱桑德·贝克的跨性别男性说，他在疫情期间完成了女变男的转变，注意到社交互动发生了变化。我想给你听听他的原话。

I'm wondering if at these workshops, Jillian, anyone ever brings up the question of of gender. And and I ask this question because some time ago, we came by an interesting post on Reddit. A trans man named Lysander Baker wrote that he had transitioned from female to male over the course of the pandemic, and he'd noticed that his social interactions had changed. I wanna play you a clip of what he told us.

这让我意识到以男性身份进行日常社交有多难，因为周围人都把我视为威胁。我突然明白：原来现在我被当作男性看待，整个游戏规则都变了。

It made me realize how difficult it was to try to socialize casually as male, because everybody around me was perceiving me as a threat. And then it struck me, it's like, oh, it's because I'm now being perceived as male, and suddenly, it's a whole different ballgame.

所以莱桑德告诉我们，朱利安，他突然感觉自己失去了和陌生人交谈的'许可证'。

So Lysander told us, Julian, that he felt that his license to talk to strangers had suddenly expired.

我与陌生人的互动变化主要源于规则彻底改变。以前我随口说些轻松玩笑无伤大雅，但现在这种幽默越来越不受欢迎。

My interactions with strangers changed mainly because the rules changed completely. Before, I could get by with lighthearted jokes, you know, you know, one off, like, zingers. But after, that started to become much more poorly received.

吉尔莲，你怎么看这种'必须与陌生人交谈'的要求？作为男性是否比女性更难做到？

So what do you make of this, Jillian, this this mandate to talk to strangers? Is it some ways harder if you're a man compared to a woman?

在我举办的‘如何与陌生人交谈’工作坊中，实际上我听到过男女双方都有这类顾虑。女性害怕与男性交谈是担心传递错误信号，男性则忧虑与女性交谈时行为会被误解。是的，我认为每个人都对彼此交流感到紧张。这真的很遗憾，不是吗？

So at the How to Talk to Strangers workshops that I've run, I've heard those kind of comments from both genders actually. So women are nervous about talking to a man because they don't want to send the wrong signals. And men are worried about talking to women because they don't want to have their behavior interpreted in the wrong way. So, yeah, I think everybody's sort of nervous about talking to each other. And it's really a shame, isn't it?

因为我们不能拒绝与半数人类交流。但我不认为我们该困在这种状态里。比如，可以通过肢体语言传递友善信号——保持适当距离，减少强烈眼神接触。总有些方法能表明我们只是友好而非别有用心。或者，我们也可以直接言明。

Because we don't wanna not talk to half of the human population. But I don't think we have to get stuck there. Like, think there's probably things we can do in our body language to signal that, you know, by keeping some distance, maybe, you know, less intense eye contact. I think there's some probably some things we can do to signal that we're just being friendly and not you know? Or we could, you know, explicitly say it.

就像说：听着，我不是在搭讪，只是表达友好。

Like, look. I'm not hitting on you. I'm just, you know, being friendly.

吉莉安，我们开始谈话时你提到曾经（或许现在仍）认为自己内向。但我了解到，你从青少年时期参加派对的经历中汲取经验，现在会主动与角落里落单的人——那些明显内向者——开启对话？

We started this conversation, Jillian, by talking about how you thought of yourself and perhaps still think of yourself as being introverted. But I understand that, you know, partly maybe learning from your own experience as an adolescent or as a young person at parties, you now make it a habit to go up to the person who is standing by themselves in a corner at the party, the person who is, you know, clearly the introvert and actually strike up a conversation with them?

是的。这么做有几个原因：首先是自私角度——作为重度内向者，在陌生人多或嘈杂环境中仍会不适。而我知道缓解方式就是与人进行一对一交谈。

Yeah. And there's a few reasons for that. One is completely selfish because, you know, I I'm very much an introvert, and so that's still an environment that I don't feel comfortable in when there's a lot of people, especially when there's lots of people I don't know or it's a really kind of noisy environment. That's when I feel the most uncomfortable. And I know that the way to fix that to make myself feel better is to get into a one to one conversation with someone.

除此之外也有利他动机。环顾房间时，你总能看到其他无人交谈的落单者。如今我知道许多人都有社交焦虑或笨拙感，所以必定存在不认识任何人的参与者。我会主动寻找并开启对话。

But then in addition to that, I'd like to think that there's a prosocial motive as well. You know, you look around the room and you see someone else who doesn't have anyone to talk to. You know, I know now that so many of us feel anxious, you know, socially anxious or socially awkward. So, you know, there's guaranteed to be somebody else who who doesn't really know anybody and doesn't have someone to talk to. And so I'll look around for that person and go and start a conversation with them.

我认为这能同时帮助到我们双方。

And so I'd like to think that it's helping both of us.

吉莉安，你在成长过程中始终自认害羞内向。某种程度上，你的行为改变程度令人惊叹。你是否会感叹自己的巨大转变？

So in many ways, Jillian, you grew up thinking of yourself as being shy and introverted. And in some ways, it's it's remarkable how far you've come. You've really practiced changing your own behavior. Do you ever, you know, think to yourself, it's remarkable how far I've come and how much I've changed?

就在几周前，我确实有过这种顿悟时刻。在歌剧中场休息后，我与坐在内侧的观众闲聊。当我问'还好吗'，对方回答'还算好吧'——陌生人承认自己不好肯定事出有因。

Just recently, actually, couple of weeks ago, I had a moment where it really struck me how far I've come. So I was at the opera, and I had come back from the intermission, and I started chatting with the people who were sitting next to me, of farther in from the aisle than I was. And I said, How are you doing? And they said, Fine ish. And I thought, Oh, something is really wrong if a complete stranger admits that they're not just fine.

于是我问发生了什么。原来那位女士患有帕金森症，她因座位远离过道而焦虑——担心第二幕中途离场会打扰他人。她本以为自己坐在过道位置。我便主动提议：'需要我协调大家换位让你靠过道坐吗？'

Right? And I said, you know, what what's going on? And it turned out that the woman had Parkinson's and she was feeling very uncomfortable sitting where she was and she was worried that she might need to leave partway through the second act, but she was so far in from the aisle that it would mean disrupting everybody. She had thought that she would be sitting on the aisle, and so she was very upset to find out that she wasn't. And so I said, would you like me to ask if people would be willing to move over so you could sit on the aisle?

你知道吗，我提出这个建议时，心想她大概率会拒绝，因为这看起来是件麻烦事。但出乎意料的是，她说‘那太好了，我会感觉自在很多’。于是我表示没问题，接着联系了两对夫妇询问是否愿意换座位。

And, you know, I offered this thinking, you know, probably she's gonna say no because it will feel like a big deal. But surprisingly, she said, yes, that would be wonderful. I would feel so much more comfortable. And so I said, no problem. And so I talked to two couples and I asked them if they'd be willing to move over.

他们当然很乐意帮忙。要知道大多数人都是善良的，只要你开口，他们就会伸出援手。我相信他们也很高兴能帮上忙。于是我们都换了座位，那对夫妇挪到了过道那边。

And, of course, they were happy to do it. You know, most people are kind. And if you ask them, know, they'll do something like that. I'm sure they felt good to be able to do that. So we all moved over, and and the couple, you know, moved over to the aisle.

当她丈夫经过我身边时，他说‘真的太感谢了，我做不到这样’。那一刻我突然意识到——曾经的我也做不到啊。这真是个顿悟时刻，原来点点滴滴的改变已经让一切不同了。

And as her husband passed me, he said, you know, thank you so much. I I couldn't have done that. It really just struck me in that moment, like, past Jillian couldn't have done that either. And so it was really a moment where I realized, wow. Somehow everything has changed in these baby steps.

我是个彻头彻尾的社恐。几年前我根本不可能主动和陌生人搭话，但现在请人换个座位对我来说完全不是问题，甚至想都不用想。知道吗？这种恐惧已经消失了，因为这些年与人们愉快的对话经历让我确信事情会顺利。

You know, I'm a complete introvert. I never would have thought of talking to strangers years ago, and here I am and asking people to move over in their seat was just not a problem at all. Didn't even think twice about it. You know? Like, it just has no fear for me anymore because I've had so many pleasant conversations with people over the years that, you know, I knew it would go well.

你父亲会为你骄傲的，吉莉安。

Your dad would have been proud of you, Jillian.

爸爸确实会骄傲的。嗯，我把这个故事讲给他听了，我想他非常自豪。

My dad would have been proud. Yeah. I did tell him this story. I think he was quite proud.

吉莉安·桑德斯托姆是萨塞克斯大学的心理学家。吉莉安，感谢你今天做客《隐藏大脑》。

Gillian Sandstrom is a psychologist at the University of Sussex. Gillian, thank you for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

谢谢邀请。

Thank you for having me.

广告之后，我们将尝试节目新环节。过去几个月里，我们在《隐藏大脑+》频道推出了‘听众问答’专栏，收集听众对我们喜爱嘉宾的后续提问。由于听众们实在太出色，他们总能提出最具深度、发人深省的问题。我们决定将这些精彩对话也放入常规节目中播出。

After the break, we're trying something new on the show. For the last several months, we've been running a feature called Your Questions Answered in our Hidden Brain plus feed. It's a feature where listeners post follow-up questions to some of our favorite guests. Because our listeners are amazing, they regularly ask the most thoughtful and thought provoking questions. We've decided to run some of these conversations in our regular feed.

稍后休息回来，我们将向研究者艾丽卡·贝利提出你们的问题，她专注研究真实性及如何向世界展现真我。这些问答环节让我受益匪浅，相信你们也会喜欢。这里是《隐藏大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。您正在收听《隐藏大脑》。

Today, after the break, we pose your questions to researcher Erica Bailey, studies authenticity and what it means to present our true selves to the world. I love both the questions and the answers and I think you will too. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这是一个周五的夜晚，你终于熬过了漫长的一周。你窝在沙发上，点好了最爱的外卖，打开电视。是时候看一集你嘴上不承认、但心里偷偷爱看的剧了。你知道是哪部。

I'm Shankar Vedanta. It's a Friday evening, and you've made it to the end of a long week. You settle in on the couch with your favorite takeout order and turn on the TV. It's time for an episode of the show you don't admit you watch, but secretly love. You know the one.

你深吸一口气，缓缓吐出。你感到放松、从容，完全做回了自己。现在有个问题：谁有资格看到这个真实的你？你的伴侣或配偶？

You take a deep breath and let it out. You feel relaxed, unhurried, completely yourself. Now here is a question. Who is allowed to see this authentic version of yourself? Your partner or spouse?

你的室友呢？如果老板突然来电，你会不好意思告诉她你在看什么剧吗？如果妈妈突然出现在家门口，你会因为厨房水槽里那堆没洗的碗碟而慌张吗？即便在看似了解我们的人面前，保持真实也并非易事。向他人展现真我有时令人畏惧。

Your roommate? If your boss were to call unexpectedly, would you be embarrassed to tell her about the show you're watching? If your mom surprised you at the front door, would you panic about the stack of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink? Being authentic, even with people who ostensibly know us well, isn't always easy. It can feel scary to show our true selves to others.

有时我们甚至不确定'做真实的自己'意味着什么。我们最近与加州大学伯克利分校研究真实性的学者埃里卡·贝利探讨了这些话题。若你错过了前两期与埃里卡的对话，可在本播客中找到：第一期名为《健康2.0：做自己》，第二期《健康2.0：真实性中的我们》为Hidden Brain Plus订阅用户专享。今天埃里卡·贝利再次做客节目，回答听众的后续问题。

And sometimes we aren't even sure what it means to be our true selves. We discussed all of this recently with the researcher Erica Bailey who studies authenticity at the University of California Berkeley. If you missed our initial set of conversations with Erica, you can find them in this podcast feed. The first is called Wellness two point o, Be Yourself, and the second, for subscribers to Hidden Brain Plus, is Wellness two point o, The Us in Authenticity. Erica Bailey returns to the show today to answer your follow-up questions.

埃里卡，欢迎回到《隐藏的大脑》。

Erica, welcome back to Hidden Brain.

哦，非常感谢再次邀请我。见到你真高兴。

Oh, thanks so much for having me again. It's so good to see you.

艾丽卡，我想先谈谈一个我们许多人花费大量时间的空间，同时这也是一个有时会让人感觉本质上不够真实的领域——社交媒体。你曾在推特上发布过一条自我揭露的信息，似乎在学术界引起了共鸣。能告诉我发生了什么故事吗？

Erica, I'd like to start by talking about a space where many of us spend a lot of time. And it's also a space that can feel sometimes inherently inauthentic, which is social media. You once posted a self revealing message on Twitter that seemed to strike a nerve in the academic community. Can you tell me the story of what happened?

当时我刚有第一篇论文被接收，这对博士生来说是巨大成就。我们总是执着于要达到一定数量的发表。在我心里，这是迈向理想工作的一步。通常你会把这些论文或公告分享给其他人，尤其是学术圈的同行。推特曾经是这样的平台。

So I had just had my very first paper accepted, and that's a huge accomplishment as a PhD student. You're obsessed with getting a certain number of publications. In my mind, this is one step towards my dream job. And you usually share these papers or these announcements with people, other academics. This used to be a space on Twitter.

我们称之为学术推特。现在我觉得大家正在逐渐转移到不同平台。但通常你会发个公告：这是我刚发表的论文，这是与我合作的作者。

We called it academic Twitter. Now I think we're sort of migrating to different platforms. But usually you'll have an announcement. This is the paper I just published. This is who I worked on it with.

这种分享可能带有自我推销、印象管理和自我表达的意味。我当时就有种冲动想告诉所有人我有多厉害——刚有论文被接收了。但我觉得更好的方式是调侃整个现象，对吧？我们总想向别人展示这些外部赋予的价值勋章。所以我发了推文：我刚有首篇论文被接收，很高兴向大家报告——我的自尊心现在完美无缺，所有心理问题都治好了。如你所料，这种自嘲式推文以它的方式火了，因为我调侃的正是我们总想向他人炫耀成就的心理。

And it can be a sort of self promotional impression management self expression. And I felt that drive to tell everyone how amazing I was that I had just gotten this paper accepted. But what I thought would be even better is to sort of poke fun at the whole idea, right, that we're constantly trying to show other people this badge of our worth that we get externally. And so I tweeted, I just had my first paper accepted, and I'm happy to report that my self esteem is now perfect and everything that's broken in me is fixed. And as you can imagine, that kind of went viral in its own way because I was poking fun at this idea that, of course, we want to share our accomplishments with other people.

但归根结底，我们依然要面对真实的自己。那篇论文被录用两天后，我其实并没有感到有什么不同。

But at the end of the day, we're still here living with ourselves. I kind of didn't feel any different two days later after that paper got accepted.

某种程度上，你的故事让我想起那位撰写'失败简历'的研究者——他记录了所有未获聘的工作和被拒的学术项目。我理解为什么人们听到失败故事会获得力量，知道并非只有自己在挣扎。但你的研究表明，分享这些故事对讲述者也有益处？当人们被鼓励在社交媒体上更真实地展现自我时，他们会更快乐？

You know, in some ways, your story reminds me of that researcher who wrote a failure resume that included all the jobs that, you know, he didn't get and academic programs that rejected him. You know, I can I get why it can be powerful for other people to hear failure stories and to know they're not alone? But your research suggests that there's a benefit to the people who are sharing those stories as well. You found that when people are actively prompted to be more authentic in their self presentation on social media, they feel happier?

是的，社交媒体最有害的压力就是被迫只展示积极面，只看到他人生活中的高光时刻。学术会议也如此——接连听到精彩论文、完美实验、总结辉煌职业生涯的主题演讲。这种压力让人误以为所有人都过着光鲜生活，因为你没看到背后的混乱细节和艰辛历程。尤其当那些看似成功人士分享这些时，会特别有力量。

Yeah, part of the pressure of social media that is so maladaptive and harmful for people is this pressure to always be sharing positive things and to only see the positive things that are going on in everyone else's life. This also happens at academic conferences. I go to talk after talk of an amazing paper and then an amazing experiment and a crazy keynote speech that's summarizing someone's entire career. And that pressure that can make you feel like everyone is living this perfect, glamorous life because you don't see all the messy details that went into what people are going through or the steps that it took for them to get to where they are. And sometimes sharing that information can be really powerful, especially from people who you think have really figured it out.

所以我常对申请博士或想加入实验室的人说：'你们现在看到的我，背后其实充满焦虑、试错、运气和偶然——这些与努力、时机同样构成成功的要素。'

So I try and do this with PhD applicants or people that want to work in my lab is to explain, you know, I look a certain way to you. And let me show you how much consternation there was to get to this point and how much of it is messiness and figuring it out and luck and chance, and that's as much a part of successes as hard work and timing and effort.

无论在社交媒体还是现实交往中，很多人都在'真实自我'与'理想化形象'间挣扎。埃里卡，这种矛盾本身是坏事吗？

So whether on social media or face to face, I think many of us feel torn between presenting what feels like an authentic version of ourselves and a more idealized version of ourselves. Is this tension a bad thing, Erica?

这远不止是社交媒体问题，而是人类本质特征——在印象管理和展现内在真实（包括脆弱与自我批判）间寻求平衡。就像'失败简历'的例子，关键是要找到平衡点。

It's an aspect of life beyond social media. It's something we feel in many social contexts. It's almost a quintessential feature of being human, is balancing this need for impression management concerns with wanting to share with people who you really are on the inside and maybe your deeper insecurities and criticisms. What we want to try and find is the right balance between those things. So you talked about people showing their failure resumes.

有时我需要翻看自己的正式简历来提醒：正如那些宏大叙事不真实，我们过度的自我批判同样不客观。要在认知短板与认可成长潜力间保持平衡——就像播客里常说的'拥抱人性的混乱'。

Sometimes I have to look at my own success resume, my actual resume, to remind myself that as much as these stories of grandeur are not true, so too are sort of the overdue criticisms that we kind of put on ourselves. So there's a balance between being aware of your shortcomings and how you can grow and the messiness of being human, as podcasters like to say, with kind of being aware of your growth and the potential that you have.

是否存在必须展示完美形象的场合？

Are there situations where you think, in fact, it is smarter to only show the polished version of ourselves?

求职面试就是典型——人们普遍觉得需要伪装。这种压力已被默认，因为面试本就是自我推销场景。我的做法是直接点破这种压力：在社交活动上说'我知道这很刻意，但我们本就是战略性地结识'——反而能缓解印象管理的焦虑。

In a job interview, I would say that's a classic experience where people tend to feel very inauthentic. And I think those pressures are normalized because we expect that in a job interview it's only self promotional or a networking context is something where people feel that they really cannot be authentic. And sometimes what I like to do is just name that pressure. It can help relieve that for all of us involved if I'm at a networking event to tell someone, I know this is awkward, but we're here to meet strategically. This is not like a normal social setting.

只要把这种压力说破，就能神奇地松解我们对自己的形象束缚。

And just by saying that somehow it relaxes the impression management concerns that we have.

现在让我们转向听众提问。第一个问题来自布·兰德，他想询问您在我们之前对话中讨论的某个特定记忆。您提到高中时与朋友们开车行驶在路上，跟着收音机唱歌，那一刻让您感到特别真实。以下是布兰的问题。

Let's turn now to listener questions. The first is from Bhu Land, who wanted to ask about a specific memory that you discussed in our earlier conversation. You talked about driving down the road in high school with your friends, singing along to the radio, and it was a moment that made you feel particularly authentic. Here's, Bhullan's question.

对我而言，真实时刻就像是我们所处环境中的摩擦感尽可能接近于零的时刻，这样我们为展现内在自我所付出的情感劳动几乎为零。我的问题是，构成这些真实时刻的要素是什么？是感到快乐的感觉吗？是感到自由的感觉吗？还有其他因素吗？

To me, authentic moment feels like the times when the friction that we feel in the environments that we are in to be as close to zero as possible, so that the emotional labor that we spend for our inner selves to come out is, almost zero. My question is, what are the ingredients of those authentic moments that make them an authentic moment? Is it the feeling of feeling happy? Is it the feeling of feeling free? Are there any other things?

谢谢。

Thank you.

那么艾瑞卡，请带我们回到您与朋友在车里的那一刻，详细说说为什么这对您来说是真实的，然后如果可以的话，回应布兰关于真实时刻构成要素的更广泛问题。

So Erika, take us back if you were to that moment in the car with your friends and say more about why it felt authentic to you, and then respond if you could to Bhu Lan's broader question about the ingredients of an authentic moment.

布兰，我打算聘请他一起合作这篇论文。我认为这种自由感与自主性有关，或者说是你感觉自己能够做出自由意志下的刻意选择的能力。他还提到了无摩擦感或感觉没有外部压力。这正是我在车里与朋友们在一起时的感受。我可以以我并不出色的阿黛尔式嗓音唱歌，而大家都在笑。

Bhu Lan is I'm going to hire him to work on this paper together. Think this sense of freedom is related to autonomy or the ability that you have the sense that you have that you're making deliberate choices of your own free will. He also mentions the sense of frictionlessness or feeling like there's not that external pressure. And that's what I was getting in that moment in the car from my friends. I could sing with my not amazing Adele like voice and we're all laughing.

我们都在共同参与这件事。所以我感到可以分享自己的一部分，而不必担心别人怎么看我。这绝对是其中的一部分。我在研究中发现，真实性往往也出现在这些我们感到非常安全或与他人有连接的社会环境中。我们是社会性动物。

We're all doing this together. So I felt that I could share some part of myself without having to worry how I was coming across. So that's absolutely part of it. One thing I found in my research is it tends, authenticity also tends to emerge in these social environments where we feel very safe or connected to other people. We are social animals.

我们真的相互滋养，并且非常渴望与他人分享我们的内心世界。因此，他人可以成为让我们更接近真实自我的重要渠道。

We really feed on each other and we really desire to share our inner world with other people So other people can be an important conduit towards feeling more like yourself.

我们在节目中多次讨论过我们所生活的文化如何塑造我们作为个体。一位名叫凯利的听众提出了一个问题，关于文化如何可能塑造我们的真实感。

We've talked in many different contexts on the show about how the culture in which we live can shape us as individuals. A listener named Kelly had a question about how culture might shape our sense of authenticity.

我读过关于世界各地文化如何在情感表达与社会凝聚力之间优先考虑的不同。我经常听到的例子是美国与日本的差异。我的问题是，您的真实性研究如何跨越不同文化进行转化？在情感更为克制的文化中，人们是否会经历更多的负面影响？或者真实性在世界不同地区的概念化方式是否不同？

I've read about how different cultures around the world vary in how much they prioritize emotional expression versus social cohesion. The example I often hear is how America differs from Japan. My question is, how does your authenticity research translate across different cultures? Do people in more emotionally controlled cultures experience more negative effects? Or is authenticity conceptualized differently in different parts of the world?

这是一个重要的问题，艾瑞卡。研究告诉我们，在世界不同地区，真实性是如何被概念化的？

So this is an important question, Erica. What does the research tell us about how authenticity is conceptualized in different parts of the world?

我认为真实性是内在自我认知与外在表达之间至关重要的契合。当我思考不同文化中如何体验这种真实性时，最终的真实性本质是相同的。但那些让你感到真实的核心自我特质或情境内容，可能会因文化规范、背景或经历而有所不同。例如听众提到的个人主义文化与集体主义文化的差异。

I think of authenticity as really this important alignment between your inner sense of self and how you're expressing yourself in the world. And when I think about how that's experienced in different cultures, the end product to me, that end authenticity is the same. But it's that content of either the self aspects that are really salient or the situations that make you feel really authentic. Those might differ depending on cultural norms or backgrounds or experiences. So, for example, the listener mentioned cultures that are maybe more individualistic versus a culture that's more collectivistic.

在个人主义文化中，当你感觉'我真正找到了自我'、'充分表达了自我'、'达到了个体化的顶峰'时，这种时刻会让你感到真实。而在更集体主义、相互依存的文化中，社会和谐或深度融入群体的时刻——比如感受到房间里所有人高度融洽时——可能才是激发真实体验的契机。虽然殊途但同归。另一个重要文化观念是关于自我认知：有人认为自我是固定稳定的，有人则认为它是流动演变的。这也会影响人们最能感受真实的情境类型或最认同的自我面向。

And in an individualistic culture, maybe these moments where you feel like I've really found myself, I've really expressed myself, I've reached the pinnacle of self individualization, that moment might make you feel really authentic. And for someone in a more collectivistic culture, interdependent culture, social harmony or moments where they feel really embedded in their social group or that there's, you know, a high level of social positivity among all of us in the room, maybe that's a moment that draws out this, this, experience of authenticity. So it gets us to the same place but maybe different pathways to get there. Another important, cultural belief is about how we think about the self as something that's really fixed or stable versus something that's really fluid and evolving. And so that can also be a predictor or a moderator on the situations that people feel the most authentic in or the types of self aspects that they relate the most to.

如果你所处的文化某种程度上与你的个性不合拍会怎样？这是否会让真实表达变得更困难？因为内在自我与外界认知更难达成一致？

What happens if the culture that you're in, in some ways, is out of step with your own personality? Does it become harder then, in some ways, to be authentic because it's harder to get that inside version of yourself to align with the outside perception of you?

对个体而言可能如此，但也未必。研究表明，人们往往会用自己的文化视角来判断他人是否真实。如果你生活在与自身文化差异很大的环境里，别人可能对你行为动机感到困惑——比如在情绪高涨场合你却表现平静，人们就会好奇为何看不到他们习以为常的情绪表达。

It could be for the individual. It also might not be. One thing we know from research is people do tend to take their own cultural lens and apply it to whether they think you're being authentic. So if you're someone who's living in a culture that's very different than your own, people often might be confused about why you're doing what you're doing or if you're not as emotional when we're in a highly emotional situation. People might be curious about that emotionality that they're used to seeing in other people.

确实存在文化匹配度的问题，但通常体现在观察者试图理解你行为动机的时候。

So there is a sense of cultural matching, but it typically happens on the perceiver side when people are trying to make sense of why you're doing what you're doing.

当然，国家认同只是文化塑造我们的方式之一。我们在职场与家庭朋友间的表现可能截然不同。听众詹妮弗提出了关于在工作场合本能性不适时如何保持真实的问题。

So national identities are, of course, only one way that culture shapes who we are. We may have different ways of being at work compared to when we are with family or friends. Listener Jennifer had a question about being authentic when you're inherently uncomfortable at work.

我的问题是：如果我想展现真实自我，但工作环境让我持续紧张，感觉所有人都预期我会搞砸——这让我总是胆怯畏缩，无法自在地表达那个我知道的真实自己，导致言辞不畅显得愚钝。我知道大家会更欣赏真实的我，但在那个环境里就是无法展现出来。您有什么建议？谢谢。

My question is, what do you suggest if I really want to be in my authentic self, but I'm in a work environment where I am constantly on edge and feel like everybody's expecting me to do badly? Therefore, I'm always nervous and timid. I don't feel comfortable to speak up and be the person that I know that I am. It makes me less articulate. It makes me seem less intelligent.

我明白我想做自己，也相信真实的我会更受欢迎。但在那种环境下就是无法释放那个真实的自己。您对此有什么建议吗？谢谢。

And I know that I wanna be me, and I think that everybody would appreciate the real me a lot more. But I I can't seem to bring that person out of me in that environment. What would you suggest for that? Thank you.

这是个有趣的困境，艾瑞卡。你对詹妮弗的遭遇怎么看？

So this is an interesting predicament, Erica. What do you make of Jennifer's story?

我十分理解詹妮弗。真心希望她能找到更舒适的新环境。作为学术界年轻女性教授，我深有同感——有些场合你就是无法触及真实自我，无法放松或感到自在。

I feel for Jennifer. I I really I really hope she can find a new environment that helps her feel more comfortable. I have felt this absolutely as a woman in academia, as a younger professor. There are some people who you just cannot tap into that sense of self. You can't relax or be comfortable.

最令人沮丧的是，明明拥有更多却无法在那些时刻和环境中展现出来。这真是种遗憾。这种挣扎尤为痛苦，因为工作占据了我们生活中如此重要的部分——消耗大量时间精力，对许多人而言更是意义所在。若要给詹妮弗建议，我会说试着在工作场所寻找能让她做自己的伙伴或盟友，通过这类联结缓解压力，并探索合作的可能性。

And it's so frustrating to know that you have more than you're able to surface in those moments and in those environments. It's really a shame. And it's a struggle because work is such an ever present part of our lives. It's a huge part of our time and our energy and for a lot of people where we get a lot of meaning. If I was going to give Jennifer advice, I would say try to find buddies or allies at work for whom she feels that she can be herself and find those moments to sort of relieve that tension and see if there are ways that they can team up.

或许在会议中，她需要寻找友善的面孔或微笑；又或在会后找人倾诉自己的表现：'你听到那个人说的话了吗？注意到别人复述我观点时的感受吗？这让我怀疑他们是否真的听见了我的声音？是否真正看见了我的存在？'

Maybe in these meetings, she needs to look at a friendly face or a smile or even after the meeting decompress and talk to someone about how she came across. Did you hear what that person said? Did you hear this other person repeating what I just said? And that made me feel like did they even hear me? Did they even see me?

另一个建议是：我从詹妮弗的叙述中察觉到某种矛盾——人们似乎既期待她失败，又可能因她的真实自我而受益。这种叙事值得质疑。事实上，多数人渴望他人展现真实，但更常见的是——人们根本无暇过多关注他人。

The other thing I would recommend is, you know, there is a narrative that I hear a little bit in what Jennifer is saying that other people on the one hand are waiting for her to fail. And at the other hand, maybe they could benefit from her being her authentic self. And I would sort of interrogate those narratives. Most people want other people to be authentic. And most people don't think about other people that much.

这个认知总能让我释然：与你交谈的人往往沉浸在自己的思绪里，纠结于自己是否真实、是否显得能干或聪明。当意识到别人其实很少关注你时，或许能帮助她获得表达真我的勇气，冒险尝试后观察：人们是为她的主动喝彩，还是如预期般排斥？之后又该如何调整？

And that kind of always makes me feel a little bit better. Like, most people you're talking to are really wrapped up in their own heads. They're thinking about whether they're being authentic, whether you think they're competent, whether you think they're intelligent. And kind of the moment you realize most people are not thinking about you at all, maybe that will help her feel some of this freedom and autonomy to express herself authentically and take a risk and see, are people excited when she steps forward, or does she face that backlash that she's expecting? And then how can she recover?

通过寻找能展现真我的工作元素来获得归属感，这个建议很棒。但若某环境确实让人无法做自己，这是否意味着该离开？当我们长期处于自我扭曲的状态时，是否该将其视为需要转换环境的信号？

I love the suggestion of trying to find elements of the job where you can feel authentic as a way to feel more at home in the workplace. But do you think it's the case that if someone truly feels they can't be themselves in some environment, is that really a signal to them that this is not the right environment for them? So when we feel like we are constantly being inauthentic in some situation, is that a way of us telling ourselves, maybe I need to find a different situation?

从环境中获取自我认知很有价值——可能帮你筛选人际圈，或意识到对工作的不适应，也可能只是需要适应期。关键是要留意那些能展现真我的工作情境特征，并主动创造或调整现有工作来契合。研究也表明，压抑的环境最终对管理者和团队都是损失。

I love taking cues from your environment to learn more about yourself. It might tell you the people you don't want around you. It might tell you that you don't like this job that much, or maybe that you're just new at your job and you need some time to sort of relax and acclimate, I do think it's important to pay attention to when she can find authenticity at work and what are the features of that situation. Maybe she can approach those situations or tailor her existing job to fit that. We also know from the research that that kind of environment is ultimately not going to be productive for her manager or her team.

这显然不是个心理安全感高的环境——人们不敢冒险。她或许可以向管理者坦言：'我尚有潜力未被挖掘，如何破除这些阻碍？无论是感知中还是实际存在的壁垒，不仅限制了我，更可能让其他同事无法为公司贡献宝贵想法。'

It sounds like it's not a place where there's high psychological safety where people feel that they can take risks. So to the extent she could maybe surface this with her manager or her leader and say, you know, I have a lot more to give and you're not maximizing on my potential. What can we do? How can we break down these barriers that are either perceived but still feel very real or maybe are really real and preventing not just me but likely other people at the table from sharing what could be really valuable for the company.

这里是'听众问答'环节，我们邀请节目研究者解答听众疑问。稍后将继续与埃里卡·贝利探讨真实性。您正在收听Hidden Brain，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

This is Your Questions Answered, our segment in which we bring back researchers we featured on the show to answer listener questions. After the break, we'll continue our conversation about authenticity with Erica Bailey. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。加州大学伯克利分校的埃里卡·贝利研究真实性及其对个人和职业生活的影响。我们在12月的系列对话中探讨过她的研究（详见本期节目注释）。埃里卡，听众劳伦来信问道：'作为美国有色人种，我们在家庭/教会/社区中与职场中的自我感知截然不同。在这个仍存在种族隔阂的国度，我们常在家展现真我，却在职场被迫迎合主流文化价值观——那些与我们成长环境微妙差异的规范。若能带着真实自我工作而不惧微妙的评判，我相信自己能成为团队更高效的核心。您如何看待劳伦的邮件？'

I'm Shankar Vedanta. At the University of California Berkeley, Erica Bailey studies authenticity and how being true to ourselves shapes our personal and professional lives. We featured Erica's work in a series of conversations in December. You can find the links to those conversations in the show notes for today's episode. Erica, here's a question we received from listener Lauren who writes, the whole time I was listening, I was hoping she would address the disconnect that people of color feel in the world they live in in America.

（注：此处保留原文结构，因前段已完整传达提问内容，本段作为节目过渡语无需重复翻译）

We often feel completely different in a home or church or community group setting compared to a work setting. We are still a very racially divided country, unfortunately. We often feel we are our authentic selves at home, but somehow are constantly fighting to be someone else in the workplace, molding to the values of the majority and the cultural norms of the majority, which are slightly different from those with which we grew up. If I could learn to bring my authentic self to work and stop worrying about those small perceived judgments or slights, I believe I could be a much more productive and integral part of my work team. What are your thoughts on Lauren's email, Erica?

这是个非常棒的问题，层次丰富且复杂。我正在进行一些相关研究，很期待能与她探讨，不过这些成果还需要经过大约两年的同行评审。她完全正确指出了关于专业主义的规范，以及研究者所称的‘理想员工刻板印象’——这些概念本质上围绕着高能力的白人男性技术工作者构建，他们某种程度上主导了职业环境。对许多人来说，要符合这些标准非常困难。

It's such a great question. It's very layered and complex. And I have some research that I'm working on that I would love to talk to her about, but it's going to be about a couple of years before that gets through the peer review process. But she's absolutely right that there are these norms about professionalism and this idea of what researchers call the ideal worker stereotype that are basically built around highly competent, white male, techie workers that sort of have dominated the professional workplace. And those are difficult for many people to live up to.

我认为即使是接近这个原型的人，也可能觉得自己并非总是理想员工。这些压力会严重限制我们展现真实自我、在周围人面前感到安全的能力。据我所知的一些研究显示，个人生活与职业生活的界限对人们保持安全、维护心理健康、进行自我关怀至关重要。我不认为每个人必须时刻保持真实——对某些人而言，向谁透露自己的特定身份可能是生死攸关的决定。

I think even people who sort of fit that prototype feel that they might not always be the ideal worker. And these pressures can really, really limit our ability to feel authentic, to feel safe with the people that are around us. And I think from some of the researchers that I know, these boundaries between our personal and professional lives can be really important for people to stay safe, to protect their mental well-being, to engage in self care. I don't think everyone has to be authentic all the time. And for some people, that can be a life or death decision with whom they share certain identities that they have.

对另一些人来说，当人们看到你显性的身份特征——比如种族、年龄、性别或明显残疾时，就会形成偏见。这实在令人遗憾，因为他们忽视了每个人的复杂性，以及你从个人视角、专业能力、亲和力等各方面为公司带来的价值。所以我认为，真正遭受损失的是公司。

And for others, it becomes a barrier that people see you with a visible identity, like your race or ethnicity, your age, your gender, visible disabilities. And they make assumptions about you. And it's really a shame because they miss how complex each person is and the value that you bring both from people's own perspectives, but also your competence and warmth and everything else that you could bring to your company. So it's the company that's really missing out, I would say.

下一位听众的提问为我们的讨论增添了更复杂的维度：当一个人拥有多重甚至相互冲突的身份时，真实性意味着什么？听众瓜达卢佩写道：‘我一生都在不断编辑或隐藏自己的某些部分，才能在进入某个空间时被接纳。我是塞法迪犹太人、墨西哥拉丁裔、库阿特坎原住民部落成员、同性恋身份认定的修女，还是一位身患残疾的长者。’

This next listener question adds an extra layer complexity to our conversation. What does it mean to be authentic when you may have multiple and perhaps competing identities? This comes from listener Guadalupe who writes, all my life, I've had to edit or censor which parts of myself I'll need to leave outside the door when I enter a room. I'm Sephardic Jewish, Mexican Latina, part of the indigenous tribal people of Cualtecan, and a lesbian identified nun. I'm also an elder with disabilities.

‘我极其努力地活出真实，但这从来不易。作为罗马天主教修女，我有灵修导师坚持认为：活出真实是我灵修道路的一部分。上帝只能通过我们这些器皿工作，前提是我们必须承认并拥抱所有身份。不知你们的节目能否探讨拥有多重强烈身份时，真实生活带来的馈赠与挑战？’艾瑞卡，当真实自我是多面体时，这个议题是否变得更复杂？

I've worked very, very hard to live authentically, and it's not always been easy. Because I'm a Roman Catholic nun, I've had the benefit of a spiritual director who insisted that part of my spiritual path is to live authentically. God can only work through us as a vessel to the extent that we name and claim all our identities. I wonder if there's a place on your program to discuss the gifts and challenges of living authentically with multiple strong identities. Erica, does this conversation become more complicated when our true selves are multifaceted?

当人们感知到这些身份之间存在界限或冲突时，复杂性就产生了。研究者称之为‘自我概念复杂性’。我们都有许多自我面向——有些部分彼此契合、相互重叠。

It becomes complicated to the extent that you perceive maybe boundaries or conflictions between these identities. So researchers call this self-concept complexity. So we all have lots of aspects of ourselves. Some pieces feel like they fit together. They're really overlapping.

而有些部分则显得格格不入。真实性可能源于你如何理解这些身份，或是你讲述它们如何塑造当下自我的叙事。即便某些身份看似遥远，我从这位听众身上听到的是：她现在的生命状态有其内在逻辑，她遵循的路径让她能以不同方式表达这些多元身份。这多么像一幅丰富的织锦，能让他人与之共鸣啊。

And others feel really far apart. And part of what authenticity can emerge from is where you make sense of those identities or the narrative that you tell about how they got you to where you are now. So even if these identities might feel far apart, what I'm hearing from the listener is there's some logic to how she created her life now. And there's some path that she feels that she's followed that has allowed her to express these various identities in different ways. And I think, well, what a rich tapestry to connect with other people on.

这是多么出人意料的联结方式啊——或许这会鼓励他人也分享自己意想不到的一面。进而这如何影响我们对自我认知、身份认同和成长能力的理解？关键在于我们如何看待自我面向的重叠，以及不同情境如何激发这些面向。听众可能对‘语码转换’的相关研究感兴趣。

What a way to surprise people about something that you wouldn't have expected. And maybe that will allow them to share something that they have that's unexpected. And then how does that inform how we see our sense of self and our identity and our ability to grow? Is all about that way that we think about our overlapping senses of self and how different situations pull these things out of us. Some research about this topic that the listener might find interesting is about code switching.

这种现象指人们在不同文化框架下会调整表达方式。比如面对不同群体时采用不同语言风格，这可能会让旁观者感到困惑：‘你和他们那样说话，怎么对我就换方式了？’不知如何理解这种行为。

So this is where people, speak slightly differently or express themselves differently when they're in different cultural frames. So for example, with different people, that can be confusing to outsiders who see inconsistency. So you speak like that with these people. And then when you're with me, you speak differently. Don't know what to make of that.

有篇论文提出简单的解决方法：直接说明‘我拥有多元文化身份，现在邀请你进入我的后台，了解更多真实的我’。多数人都能理解多重身份的存在——这甚至可以成为创意练习，让对方恍然大悟：‘啊，我确实会和某些人专门聊足球。’

And a very simple intervention in this paper is just to say, well, I have different cultural identities. And this is a part of me. And now welcome to my backstage where I'm going to tell you more about who I am that's going to help you make sense of this. And most people understand what it's like to have multiple identities. And it could even be a creativity exercise for another person to connect with you to realize, oh, yeah, actually, I guess I do sometimes talk about football with this one person.

然后我和另一个人讨论数学。

And then I talk about mathematics with someone else.

艾瑞卡，这段对话中隐含的一个现实是，作为人类，我们是社会性生物，面临着巨大的压力去迎合周围人的期望。这对自闭症谱系障碍患者来说可能尤为明显。听众佩吉说她最近才被诊断出患有自闭症和多动症。她写道，我和大多数小女孩以及一些男孩在童年时期的人际探索阶段，会通过观察他人行为来融入群体并结交朋友。我一直觉得自己像个伪装者，却不知为何也无法变得真实。

So Erica, one of the realities embedded in this conversation is that as humans, we are social creatures, we face enormous pressure to conform to the expectations of the people around us. That may be particularly true for people with autism spectrum disorder. Listener Peggy says that she was only recently diagnosed with autism and ADHD. She writes, What happened to me and most young girls and some boys is that during the young years of inner personal exploration, we are watching how others behave so we will fit in and have some friends. I always felt like a pretender and didn't know why or how to become authentic.

这现在是个巨大的挑战。这封邮件反映了对许多人（包括那些认为自己是神经多样性的人）来说，向世界展现真实自我是多么令人生畏。首先，你必须弄清楚真实自我的含义。然后下一步是穿越一个可能因你忠于自我而惩罚你的世界，尽管这种真实在社会更广泛层面可能不受欢迎。这感觉很困难，不是吗，艾瑞卡？

That is now an enormous challenge. So the email speaks to how daunting it can feel for many people, including those who think of themselves as neurodivergent, to present their true selves to the world. First of all, you have to figure out what it means to be your true self. And then the next step is to move through a world that may penalize you for behaving in ways that feel authentic to you, but may be frowned upon by society more broadly. That feels difficult, doesn't it, Erica?

确实如此。我认为你开始理解为什么真实性是个如此有趣又复杂的研究课题——因为这些问题听起来很美好：做真实的自己，把真实自我带入工作，或者展现本真。但当你意识到这个'你'有时非常复杂，或者这个'你'并不完全适合当前环境时——我想大多数人都觉得没有完美契合的环境——这个问题就变得复杂得多。我还是要回到这个观点，并且有实证数据表明，人们对某人是否真实的判断千差万别。

Absolutely. And I think you're getting a sense for why authenticity is such a fun topic to study and so complicated because these questions it sounds really good to just be your true self or bring your true self to work or, yeah, be you. And then the second you start to realize, oh, that you is really complicated sometimes, or maybe the you doesn't fit in this environment in quite the right way, which I think most people don't feel like there's that perfect fit. It starts to get much more complex of a question. Again, I would sort of go back to this idea, and I have some empirical data that shows this, that people's perceptions of whether someone is authentic are all over the place.

我对某人真实性的判断几乎完全不同于另一个人对同一个人的判断，即使我们属于同一个社交圈。在这项研究中，我还考察了幸福感的结果。发现他人对你真实性的评价其实与你的幸福感无关，真正重要的是你自身感受到的真实性。所以四处试图说服别人你是真实的，也许能逐个说服某些人...

The judgments that I make about one person's authenticity are almost completely different than the judgments that someone else makes of the same person, even if we sort of know that person together in the same social group. And in that same research, I looked at outcomes of well-being. And what I found is like other people's ratings of your authenticity really don't relate to your well-being. It's really the sense of authenticity that you have is really important for your own well-being. So going around and trying to convince other people that you're being authentic, maybe it would work for one person at a time.

但想要让工作场所所有人都相信你是真实的——'不，我真的很真实'、'不，我真是这么想的'、'这就是真实的我'——在某种程度上可能是与他人建立联系的方式。但说服别人相信你的真实性非常困难，特别是当他们固执己见不愿理解你、不愿换位思考，或戴着刻板印象的有色眼镜看你时。

But trying to convince everybody in your workplace that you're authentic, no, I'm really authentic. No, I really mean this. So this is how I am. That, to some extent, can be a way to connect with other people. But it's really difficult to convince people that you're being authentic, especially if they have it in their heads that they're not going to try to understand you or they're not going to take your perspective or they're to view you through a stereotypical lens.

因此我通常告诉人们：追求真实性本身就有价值，为了你自己，为了你在能安全展现真实的地方获得幸福感。别人怎么想是他们的事。我想说的是，要在他人对你的看法与你探索真我的追求之间保持健康距离，并找到能展现真实自我的空间。

And so what I usually tell people is authenticity is worth pursuing for its own sake, for you, for your well-being in places where you feel that you can be authentic safely. What other people think about you, that's their business. And I think all I can say is create healthy distance between other people's perceptions of you and your authentic pursuits to discover who you are and to find places where you can bring that forward.

我们收到多位听众来信询问关于真实生活的书籍和资源。艾瑞卡，希望你能分享推荐读物。在此之前，先看看听众劳瑞的相关提问。

We had several, listeners who reached out asking for books and other resources on living authentically. I'd love for you to share any reading materials that you would recommend, Erica. And before you do, here's a related question we received from listener Laurie.

作为先天残障人士，我从未找到任何探讨自尊或接纳自我的心理咨询或论述——当你与同龄人截然不同时。由于失聪和残障，我成长过程中必须比同龄人付出更多努力。希望你们能深入探讨这个问题，或指引我找到相关参考资料，帮助我学习如何作为残障人士活出自我。

As someone who was born with a disability, I've never found any kind of counseling or discourse that explores the self esteem and coming to terms with who you are when you are very different from your peers. I grew up having to work a lot harder than my peers because of my disability and being deaf. I would love if you could explore this question a little bit more, or just guide me to some kind of references or information so I can learn more about being myself as a person with a disability.

有什么建议吗，艾瑞卡？

Any suggestions, Erica?

听起来她有一本我想读的书要写，这也很贴近我的心。我的导师是盲人，经常和她谈论她的自我意识、她在世界中的形象，以及她在90年代读研究生的经历，这些与我对世界的体验截然不同。理解那些与你有着不同世界体验的人真是太迷人了。所以如果她将来出书，我绝对会拜读。

Well, it sounds like she has a book to write that I want to read. That's also close to my heart. My advisor is blind, and always talking to her about her sense of self and how she's viewed in the world and how she experienced going to grad school in the '90s, for example, is just completely different than the way that I've experienced the world. And it's so fascinating to understand people who experience the world differently than you do. So I would love to read her book should she ever write it.

我是个有点另类的学者，主要读小说，基本不碰学术类自助书籍——尽管它们可能很有用。要说推荐的学术著作，我会选经典之作：欧文·戈夫曼的《日常生活中的自我呈现》。关于社会作为一场表演、关于被污名化身份者因显性或隐性特征而遭受评判的观点，他在60年代就思考得很透彻了。但小说才是真正能通过他人视角探索叙事的绝佳载体。

I'm kind of a funny academic where I mostly read fiction books, and I kind of don't read academic y self help books, even though they might be very helpful. I would say the one academic book that I'll recommend is a classic. It's Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. A lot of these ideas about society as a social performance, about people with stigmatized identities where other people would judge them or make inferences about them because of a visible or invisible identity are really something that he thought about in the 60s. But in terms of books like fiction books, I feel are a really great place to explore narratives by being in someone else's head.

你可以安全地坐在沙发上，通过他人体验世界——或是与恶龙搏斗，或是置身1960年代的波兰，透过别人的镜头看世界。我发现书籍能帮你审视自我，从不同角度思考：原来别人是这样体验世界的啊。我随手记下的几本关于自我探索与人际沟通的书：《所有我们看不见的光》非常震撼；《安全港湾》讲述一个在特殊家庭长大、难以与人建立联系的女孩，直到有个活力四射的女性闯入她的生活，打破她筑起的所有边界，让她重新认识自己的历史和可能性；

You get to experience the world through someone else in a safe environment, you know, sitting on your couch. But you're fighting dragons or you're in the 1960s in Poland and you're experiencing the world through another person's lens. And I've really found that books help you kind of pick up who you are and look at it from different angles and think, oh, I would have never realized that that's how someone else experiences the world. So some books that I jotted down that are about this self exploration and communicating yourself with others is All the Light We Cannot See, which is incredible, The very two books I really like are The Safe Keep, which is about sort of someone who grew up in a very particular type of household who finds it really difficult to connect with other people, until, like, sort of a rambunctious, woman comes into her life and, you know, destroys all these nice boundaries that she's set up for herself. And through the process, she learns a lot more about who she is, both literally her history, but also who she could be.

最后一本叫《权力》，探讨性别角色反转后的世界，剖析哪些性别特质是核心本质，哪些只是社会强加的叙事。这三本书都让我以新视角审视自我身份，思考‘我究竟是谁’。这就是我热爱小说的原因。下次我会给你带些好的学术电子书。

And then the last book is called The Power. The Power is about what would happen if gender roles were flipped and what parts of our gender are core to who we are and really important and predictive and what parts are just society's story that it's told about who you are in your place and how you view other people. And I think all three of those books helped me look at aspects of my own identity in a new way and think about who really am I and how do I relate to these different aspects of the self? So that's part of why I love fiction books. And I'll come back with some good academic ebooks for you next time.

艾瑞卡，之前你提到在基要派教会成长的经历及离开的决定。听众汉娜提问说她也经历过类似宗教背景并已离开教会。

So Erica, in our earlier conversation, you talked about growing up in a fundamentalist church and making the decision to leave that community. We received a question from a listener named Hannah who says she experienced a similar religious upbringing and has since left her church.

最困难的是如何用新价值观构建有目标的生活，使其像宗教那样充实。宗教曾是我生命的全部，规划了我以为的人生轨迹。现在普通的事业生活相比之下常显得苍白。我的问题是：在宗教完全定义你身份和人生的背景下，

I think the hardest part for me has been trying to reconcile my new set of values with a way to live purposeful life that feels as fulfilling as the religion did. As I'm sure that she understands religion was not just like a part of my life, it was my entire life, and it dictated the entire trajectory of where I thought I was going. And without it, sometimes it feels that like a normal life with like my career and things like that. They almost don't hold up to the meaning that religion gave me. So I guess my question is coming from that context of a very religious upbringing that basically defined your identity and your life for you.

你是否找到能媲美宗教意义的生命目标和价值？有什么具体建议吗？

Do you have any specific suggestions or advice on how you were able to find meaning and purpose and an ultimate goal to your life that feels as fulfilling as religion did.

汉娜的问题让我想到，选择真实生活可能伴随巨大代价——对她而言，就是失去宗教赋予的目标感。艾瑞卡，你离开教会后是否也有这种体验？如何应对？

So what I take from Hannah's question, Erica, is that there can be a very painful trade off when we make the decision to live more authentically. In in Hannah's case, being true to herself meant giving up the sense of purpose that religion had given her. Is that something that you experienced as well after leaving your church? And how you cope with it?

当然。脱离那个对你人生有着强烈预设的世界会让人眩晕。直到现在，想到‘我明天就能去法国’——不用请示任何人，这种自由仍觉不可思议。

Absolutely. It's a dizzying feeling to kind of come out of that world that has a very strong narrative about who you are and where you're going. And it's like to this day, the idea, oh, I could just go to France tomorrow. Like, there's no one to ask, right? You could just do it.

我的人生没有既定剧本，全由自己书写。这既充满力量又令人惶恐——但愿我能找到方向，做出正确选择。

There's no sort of set plan for my life. I make that plan. And that's empowering and also scary. Like, I hope I figure it out. I hope I make the right choices.

我发现关键在于实践而非空想。在真正行动之前，很难预知什么会赋予你目标与意义，或让你感到满足。因此需要通过一些尝试来探索什么能带给你意义、什么是重要的，以及如何在日常生活中找到真实感。同时我也保持现实态度——几乎任何事做久了都会让我烦躁，总有一天我会对着梦寐以求的工作说：我不想干了。

What I found is you figure it out by doing, not as much by thinking. It's really hard to know what's going to give you purpose and meaning or what you're going to find fulfilling before you actually do it. So there's some experimentation that you can do to learn what gives you meaning, what matters, sort of what helps you find a sense of authenticity in your daily life. And then I also try and be realistic that almost anything I do, I'm going to get annoyed with it. There's going to be a day where I'm like, I do not want to do this dream job that I worked so hard for.

这很常见。人类对环境的适应力极强，无论好坏。不存在某个节点能让你抵达人生巅峰从此永远幸福。这种认知反而能缓解那些艰难时刻的焦虑——当你想着'我本该更快乐'时，比如刚获得终身教职时。

I think that's common. People adapt really quickly to their environments, both good and bad. And so there's not a day where you reach the pinnacle of who you are and you're happy forever. And that kind of can help take the edge off these difficult days where you think, I should feel happier, right? Or I just got tenure.

刚达到事业某个高度时，本以为会感受到某种预期中的成就感，但本质上你还是原来的自己。那个贯穿始终的自我认知依然伴随着你，你必须与之和解。

I just got to this point in my career. I should kind of finally feel something that I thought was there. And it's just still you. It's still that sense of who you've been all along that's kind of still with you. And you have to make peace with that.

我特别欣赏Tig Notaro的建议——她谈论'万物皆空'这句话带来的解脱感。固然想到'我的工作再充实，百年后还剩什么'会令人伤感，但反过来想：'反正都不重要，我在工作上犯了错又如何？'

The other piece of advice that I love is from Tig Notaro and she talks about the joy of the phrase nothing matters and how it can be really sad to be like, oh, nothing matters. You know, at the end of the day, maybe my job is super fulfilling, but what's going to be left of it in one hundred years? But there's also something so freeing about that, that, you know what? Nothing matters. I made a mistake at work.

生活仍会继续。我靠撰写昂贵的PDF文件谋生，这很有趣，也确实让我很有成就感。但归根结底，这事儿挺滑稽的。

My life will go on. You know, I write expensive PDFs for a living. And that's funny. Like, that's it is very rewarding for me. But at the end of the day, you know, it is silly.

若我务农的曾祖父母看到我整天敲击发亮屏幕的样子，肯定会问'这算哪门子工作？'所以健康的心态是：生命既部分无意义，又因我们赋予的意义而深刻——无论是给自己还是给沿途的人际关系。

In hindsight, my great grandparents who are farmers would look at what I'm doing and say, what is this bright screen you're tapping into all day long? So I think it's healthy to have some sense of, like, life is partially meaningless and partially deeply infused with meaning that we bring it and that we give to it and that we give to our relationships along the way.

Erica Bailey是加州大学伯克利分校哈斯商学院的社会科学家。Erica，非常感谢你再次做客《隐藏大脑》。

Erica Bailey is a social scientist at the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley. Erica, thank you so much for joining me again on Hidden Brain.

很愉快与你交谈。

Great talking to you.

《隐藏大脑》由Hidden Brain Media制作。音频制作团队包括Annie Murphy Paul、Kristen Wong、Laura Quarrell、Ryan Katz、Autumn Barnes、Andrew Chadwick和Nick Woodbury。Tara Boyle担任执行制作人，我是《隐藏大脑》的执行编辑。您认识可能喜欢本期节目的朋友吗？

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quarrell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. Do you know someone who would enjoy this episode?

如果有，请分享给他们，并告知如何在其常用播客平台关注《隐藏大脑》。您的口碑推荐是连接他人与节目理念最有力的方式。感谢您作为《隐藏大脑》的传播使者，我们深表感激。

If so, please share it with them. Show them how they can follow Hidden Brain on their preferred podcast app. Your word-of-mouth recommendations are the most powerful way to connect people to the ideas we explore on the show. Thank you for being an ambassador for Hidden Brain. We really appreciate it.

我是尚卡尔·维丹塔姆。回头见。

I'm Shankar Vedantham. See you soon.